99 ideas
| 12926 | Wisdom is the science of happiness [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Wisdom is the science of happiness. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1690.03.23) | |
| A reaction: That probably comes down to common sense, or Aristotle's 'phronesis'. I take wisdom to involve understanding, as well as the quest for happiness. |
| 12903 | Wise people have fewer acts of will, because such acts are linked together [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The wiser one is, the fewer separate acts of will one has and the more one's views and acts of will are comprehensive and linked together. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.04.12) | |
| A reaction: [letter to Landgrave, about Arnauld] It is unusual to find a philosopher who actually tries to analyse the nature of wisdom, instead of just paying lipservice to it. I take Leibniz to be entirely right here. He equates wisdom with rational behaviour. |
| 12914 | Metaphysics is geometrical, resting on non-contradiction and sufficient reason [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I claim to give metaphysics geometric demonstrations, assuming only the principle of contradiction (or else all reasoning becomes futile), and that nothing exists without a reason, or that every truth has an a priori proof, from the concept of terms. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 XI) | |
| A reaction: For the last bit, see Idea 12910. This idea is the kind of huge optimism about metaphysic which got it a bad name after Kant, and in modern times. I'm optimistic about metaphysics, but certainly not about 'geometrical demonstrations' of it. |
| 12915 | Definitions can only be real if the item is possible [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Definitions to my mind are real, when one knows that the thing defined is possible; otherwise they are only nominal, and one must not rely on them. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 XI) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that things do not have to actual to have real definitions. For Leibniz, what is possible will exist in the mind of God. For me what is possible will exist in the potentialities of the powers of what is actual. |
| 5728 | The concept of truth was originated by the senses [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The concept of truth was originated by the senses. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.479) | |
| A reaction: This is a refreshing challenge to the modern view of truth, which seems entirely entangled with language. Truth seems a useful concept when discussing the workings of an animal mind. As you get closer to an object, you see it more 'truly'. |
| 12910 | The predicate is in the subject of a true proposition [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In a true proposition the concept of the predicate is always present in the subject. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X) | |
| A reaction: This sounds very like the Kantian notion of an analytic truth, but Leibniz is applying it to all truths. So Socrates must contain the predicate of running as part of his nature (or essence?), if 'Socrates runs' is to be true. |
| 19333 | A truth is just a proposition in which the predicate is contained within the subject [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In every true affirmative proposition, necessary or contingent, universal or particular, the concept of the predicate is in a sense included in that of the subject; the predicate is present in the subject; or else I do not know what truth is. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14) | |
| A reaction: Why did he qualify this with "in a sense"? This is referred to as the 'concept containment theory of truth'. This is an odd view of the subject. If the truth is 'Peter fell down stairs', we don't usually think the concept of Peter contains such things. |
| 12920 | There is no multiplicity without true units [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is no multiplicity without true units. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30) | |
| A reaction: Hence real numbers do not embody 'multiplicity'. So either they don't 'embody' anything, or they embody 'magnitudes'. Does this give two entirely different notions, of measure of multiplicity and measures of magnitude? |
| 12319 | What is not truly one being is not truly a being either [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: What is not truly one being is not truly a being either. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Alain Badiou - Briefings on Existence 1 | |
| A reaction: Badiou quotes this as identifying Being with the One. I say Leibniz had no concept of 'gunk', and thought everything must have a 'this' identity in order to exist, which is just the sort of thing a logician would come up with. |
| 12922 | A thing 'expresses' another if they have a constant and fixed relationship [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: One thing 'expresses' another (in my terminology) when there exists a constant and fixed relationship between what can be said of one and of the other. This is the way that a perspectival projection expresses its ground-plan. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.10.09) | |
| A reaction: Arnauld was puzzled by what Leibniz might mean by 'express', and it occurs to me that Leibniz was fishing for the modern concept of 'supervenience'. It also sounds a bit like the idea of 'covariance' between mind and world. Maybe he means 'function'. |
| 13079 | A substance contains the laws of its operations, and its actions come from its own depth [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Each indivisible substance contains in its nature the law by which the series of its operations continues, and all that has happened and will happen to it. All its actions come from its own depths, except for dependence on God. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1688.01.4/14) | |
| A reaction: I take the combination of 'laws' and 'forces', which Leibniz attributes to Aristotelian essences, to be his distinctive contribution towards giving us an Aristotelian metaphysic which is suitable for modern science. |
| 9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Maybe a disposition is a more fundamental notion than a cause, in which case Lewis has from the very start erred in seeking a causal analysis, in a traditional, conceptual sense, of disposition terms. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 2.2.8 | |
| A reaction: Is this right about Lewis? I see him as reducing both dispositions and causes to a set of bald facts, which exist in possible and actual worlds. Conditionals and counterfactuals also suffer the same fate. |
| 12745 | Philosophy needs the precision of the unity given by substances [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy cannot be better reduced to something precise, than by recognising only substances or complete beings endowed with a true unity, with different states that succeed one another; all else is phenomena, abstractions or relations. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7 | |
| A reaction: This idea bothers me. Has the whole of modern philosophy been distorted by this yearning for 'precision'? It has put mathematicians and logicians in the driving seat. Do we only attribute unity because it suits our thinking? |
| 12921 | Accidental unity has degrees, from a mob to a society to a machine or organism [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There are degrees of accidental unity, and an ordered society has more unity than a chaotic mob, and an organic body or a machine has more unity than a society. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30) | |
| A reaction: This immediately invites questions about the extremes. Why does the very highest degree of 'accidental unity' not achieve 'true unity'? And why cannot a very ununified aggregate have a bit of unity (as in unrestricted mereological composition)? |
| 12746 | We find unity in reason, and unity in perception, but these are not true unity [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: A pair of diamonds is merely an entity of reason, and even if one of them is brought close to another, it is an entity of imagination or perception, that is to say a phenomenon; contiguity, common movement and the same end don't make substantial unity. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7 | |
| A reaction: This invites the question of what you have to do to two objects to give them substantial unity. The distinction between unity 'of reason' and unity 'of perception' is good. |
| 12916 | A body is a unified aggregate, unless it has an indivisible substance [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: One will never find a body of which it may be said that it is truly one substance, ...because entities made up by aggregation have only as much reality as exists in the constituent parts. Hence the substance of a body must be indivisible. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.11) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz rejected atomism, and he evidently believed that pure materialists must deny the real existence of physical objects. Common sense suggests that causal bonds bestow a high degree of unity on bodies (if degrees are allowed). |
| 12919 | Unity needs an indestructible substance, to contain everything which will happen to it [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Substantial unity requires a complete, indivisible and naturally indestructible entity, since its concept embraces everything that is to happen to it, which cannot be found in shape or motion. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.11.28/12.8) | |
| A reaction: Hence if a tile is due to be broken in half (Arnauld's example), it cannot have had unity in the first place. To what do we refer when we say 'the tile was broken'? |
| 12923 | Every bodily substance must have a soul, or something analogous to a soul [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Every bodily substance must have a soul, or at least an entelechy which is analogous to the soul. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.10.09) | |
| A reaction: He routinely commits to a 'soul', and then pulls back and says it may only be an 'analogy'. He had deep doubts about his whole scheme, which emerged in the late correspondence with Des Bosses. This not monads, says Garber. |
| 12704 | Aggregates don’t reduce to points, or atoms, or illusion, so must reduce to substance [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In aggregates one must necessarily arrive either at mathematical points from which some make up extension, or at atoms (which I dismiss), or else no reality can be found in bodies, or finally one must recognises substances that possess a true unity. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2 | |
| A reaction: Garber calls this Leibniz's Aggregate Argument. Leibniz is, of course, talking of physical aggregates which have unity. He consistently points out that a pile of logs has no unity at all. But is substance just that-which-provides-unity? |
| 13077 | Basic predicates give the complete concept, which then predicts all of the actions [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Apart from those that depend on others, one must only consider together all the basic predicates in order to form the complete concept of Adam adequate to deduce from it everything that is ever to happen to him, as much as is necessary to account for it. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.06) | |
| A reaction: This (implausibly) goes beyond mere prediction of properties. Eve's essence seems to be relevant to Adam's life. Note that the complete concept is not every predicate, but only those 'necessary' to predict the events. Cf Idea 13082. |
| 12908 | Essences exist in the divine understanding [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Essences exist in the divine understanding before one considers will. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X) | |
| A reaction: This is a sort of religious neo-platonism. The great dream seems to be that of mind-reading God, and the result is either Pythagoras (it's numbers!), or Plato (it's pure ideas!), or this (it's essences!). See D.H.Lawrence's poem on geranium and mignottes. |
| 12706 | Bodies need a soul (or something like it) to avoid being mere phenomena [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Every substance is indivisible and consequently every corporeal substance must have a soul or at least an entelechy which is analogous to the soul, since otherwise bodies would be no more than phenomena. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], G II 121), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2 | |
| A reaction: There is a large gap between having 'a soul' and having something 'analogous to a soul'. I take the analogy to be merely as originators of action. Leibniz wants to add appetite and sensation to the Aristotelian forms (but knows this is dubious!). |
| 12906 | Truths about species are eternal or necessary, but individual truths concern what exists [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The concept of a species contains only eternal or necessary truths, whereas the concept of an individual contains, regarded as possible, what in fact exists or what is related to the existence of things and to time. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.06) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be what is behind the preference some have for kind-essences rather than individual essences. But the individual must be explained, as well as the kind. Not all tigers are identical. The two are, of course, compatible. |
| 8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual is non-vacuously true iff it takes less of a departure from actuality to make the consequent true along with the antecedent than it does to make the antecedent true without the consequent. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.197) | |
| A reaction: Almost every theory proposed by Lewis hangs on the meaning of the word 'close', as used here. If you visited twenty Earth-like worlds (watch Startrek?), it would be a struggle to decide their closeness to ours in rank order. |
| 12904 | If varieties of myself can be conceived of as distinct from me, then they are not me [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I can as little conceive of different varieties of myself as of a circle whose diameters are not all of equal length. These variations would all be distinct one from another, and thus one of these varieties of myself would necessarily not be me. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.05.13) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be, at the very least, a rejection of any idea that I could have a 'counterpart'. It is unclear, though, where he would place a version of himself who learned a new language, or who might have had, but didn't have, a haircut. |
| 11981 | If someone's life went differently, then that would be another individual [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If the life of some person, or something went differently than it does, nothing would stop us from saying that it would be another person, or another possible universe which God had chosen. So truly it would be another individual. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.14) | |
| A reaction: Plantinga quotes this as an example of 'worldbound individuals'. This sort of remark leads to people saying that Leibniz believes all properties are essential, since they assume that his notion of essence is bound up with identity. But is it? |
| 12905 | I cannot think my non-existence, nor exist without being myself [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I am assured that as long as I think, I am myself. For I cannot think that I do not exist, nor exist so that I be not myself. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.05.13) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere he qualifies the Cogito, but here he seems to straighforwardly endorse it. |
| 19334 | I can't just know myself to be a substance; I must distinguish myself from others, which is hard [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough for understanding the nature of myself, that I feel myself to be a thinking substance, one would have to form a distinct idea of what distinguishes me from all other possible minds; but of that I have only a confused experience. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14) | |
| A reaction: Not a criticism I have encountered before. Does he mean that I might be two minds, or might be a multitude of minds? It seems to be Hume's problem, that you are aware of experiences, but not of the substance that unites them. |
| 5729 | If the senses are deceptive, reason, which rests on them, is even worse [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The structure of your reasoning must be rickety and defective, if the senses on which it rests are themselves deceptive. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.518) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as one of the most basic tenets of empiricism. It denies the existence of 'pure' reason, and instead asserts that it is built out of complex and abstracted sense experience, which makes it ultimately a second-class citizen. |
| 5702 | The senses are much the best way to distinguish true from false [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: What can be a surer guide to the distinction of true from false than our own senses? | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.700) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't say they are the only guide, which leaves room for guides such as what is consistent or self-evident or inferred. There is enough here, though, to show that the Epicureans were empiricists in a fairly modern way. |
| 5033 | Nothing should be taken as certain without foundations [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Nothing should be taken as certain without foundations. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30) | |
| A reaction: This might leave open the option, if you were a modern 'Fallibilist', that something might lack foundations, and so not be certain, and yet still qualify as 'knowledge'. That is my view. Knowledge resides somewhere between opinion and certainty. |
| 5697 | The only possible standard for settling doubts is the foundation of the senses [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: If a belief resting directly on the foundation of the senses is not valid, there will be no standard to which we can refer any doubt on obscure questions for rational confirmation. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.422) | |
| A reaction: A classic statement of empiricist foundationalism. The Epicureans don't appear to have any time for a priori truths at all. I wonder if they settled mathematical disputes by counting objects and drawing diagrams? |
| 5727 | Most supposed delusions of the senses are really misinterpretations by the mind [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Paradoxical experiences (such a dreams and illusions) cannot shake our faith in the senses. Most of the illusion is due to the mental assumptions we ourselves superimpose, so that things not perceived by the senses pass for perceptions. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.462) | |
| A reaction: Some misinterpretations of the senses, such as thinking a square tower round, are the result of foolish lack of judgement, but actual delusions within the senses, such as a ringing in the ears, or a pain in a amputated leg, seem like real sense failures. |
| 5714 | Even simple facts are hard to believe at first hearing [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: No fact is so simple that it is not harder to believe than to doubt at the first presentation. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.1022) | |
| A reaction: Hence induction is just 'drumming it in' until you come to believe it. There are good evolutionary reasons why we should be like this, because we would otherwise believe all sorts of silly half-perceptions in the gloaming. |
| 12913 | Nature is explained by mathematics and mechanism, but the laws rest on metaphysics [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: One must always explain nature along mathematical and mechanical lines, provided one knows that the very principles or laws of mechanics or of force do not depend upon mathematical extension alone but upon certain metaphysical reasons. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X) | |
| A reaction: I like this, and may even use it as the epigraph of my masterwork. Recently Stephen Hawking (physicist) has been denigrating philosophy, but I am with Leibniz on this one. |
| 13089 | To fully conceive the subject is to explain the resulting predicates and events [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Even in the most contingent truths, there is always something to be conceived in the subject which serves to explain why this predicate or event pertains to it, or why this has happened rather than not. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.06) | |
| A reaction: The last bit, about containing what has happened, seems absurd, but the rest of it makes sense. It is just the Aristotelian essentialist view, that a full understanding of the inner subject will both explain and predict the surface properties. |
| 5034 | Mind is a thinking substance which can know God and eternal truths [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Minds are substances which think, and are capable of knowing God and of discovering eternal truths. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.10.09) | |
| A reaction: 'God' is there because the ability to grasp the ontological argument is seen as basic. Note a firm commitment to substance-dualism, and a rationalist commitment to the spotting of necessary truths as basic. He is not totally wrong. |
| 5718 | The mind is in the middle of the breast, because there we experience fear and joy [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The guiding principle of the whole body is the mind or intellect, which is firmly lodged in the mid-region of the breast. Here is felt fear and alarm, and the caressing pulse of joy. Here, then is the seat of the intellect and mind. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.140) | |
| A reaction: Even by this date thinking people were not clear that the mind is in the brain. They paid insufficient attention to head injuries. The emotions are felt to have a location, but intellect and principles are not. |
| 5717 | The mind is a part of a man, just like a hand or an eye [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: First, I maintain that the mind, which we often call the intellect, the seat of guidance and control of life, is part of a man, no less than hand or foot or eyes are parts of a whole living creature. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.95) | |
| A reaction: Presumably Lucretius asserts this because some people were denying it. Sounds like common sense to me. The only reason I can see for anyone denying what he says is if they are desperate to survive death. |
| 21387 | The separate elements and capacities of a mind cannot be distinguished [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: No single element [of the soul] can be separated, nor can their capacities be divided spatially; they are like the multiple powers of a single body | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.262), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 2.7 | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that this comes from someone with a strongly physicalist view of the mind (though not, if I recall, focusing on the brain). He is still totally impressed by the unified phenomenology of mental experience. He is an empiricist. |
| 5032 | It seems probable that animals have souls, but not consciousness [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It appears probable that the brutes have souls, though they are without consciousness. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.12.08) | |
| A reaction: This will be a response to Descartes, who allowed animals sensations, but not minds or souls. Personally I cannot make head or tail of Leibniz's claim. What makes it "apparent" to him? |
| 5709 | The actions of the mind are not determinate and passive, because atoms can swerve [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The fact that the mind itself has no internal necessity to determine its every act and compel it to suffer in helpless passivity - this is due to the slight swerve of the atoms at no determinate time or place. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.294) | |
| A reaction: No one likes this proposal much, but it is very intriguing. The Epicureans had seen a problem, one which doesn't bother me much. If, nowadays, you are a reductive physicalist who believes in free will, you have a philosophical nightmare ahead of you. |
| 8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: By determinism I mean that the prevailing laws of nature are such that there do not exist any two possible worlds which are exactly alike up to that time, which differ thereafter, and in which those laws are never violated. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.196) | |
| A reaction: This would mean that the only way an action of free will could creep in would be if it accepted being a 'violation' of the laws of nature. Fans of free will would probably prefer to call it a 'natural' phenomenon. I'm with Lewis. |
| 5031 | Everything which happens is not necessary, but is certain after God chooses this universe [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is not the case that everything which happens is necessary; rather, everything which happens is certain after God made choice of this possible universe, whose notion contains this series of things. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.05) | |
| A reaction: I think this distinction is best captured as 'metaphysical necessity' (Leibniz's 'necessity'), and 'natural necessity' (his 'certainty'). 'Certainty' seems a bad word, as it is either certain de dicto or de re. Is God certain, or is the thing certain? |
| 5695 | Only bodies can touch one another [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can touch or be touched except body. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.303) | |
| A reaction: This is the key objection to interactionism, and the main reason why the atomists have a thoroughly material view of the mind. It is an induction from a very large number of instances, but the argument is not, of course, conclusive. |
| 5711 | The earth is and always has been an insentient being [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The earth is and always has been an insentient being. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.658) | |
| A reaction: The fact that Epicurus needs to deny this shows that some idea close to panpsychism must still have been around in his time. He is discussing gods at the time, so maybe pantheism was the view being attacked, but that is a subset of panpsychism. |
| 5712 | Particles may have sensation, but eggs turning into chicks suggests otherwise [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: There is the possibility that particles have senses like those of an animate being as a whole, …but from the fact that we perceive eggs turning into live fledglings, we may infer that sense can be generated from the insentient. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.914) | |
| A reaction: He gives other arguments for his view. The egg example is not a strong argument, but is precisely our puzzle of how consciousness can emerge from the process of evolution, and natural selection makes dualism look unlikely. |
| 5719 | The mind moves limbs, wakes the body up, changes facial expressions, which involve touch [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Mind and spirit are both composed of matter, as we see them propelling limbs, rousing the body from sleep, changing the expression of the face, and guiding the whole man - activities which clearly involves touch, which involves matter. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.164) | |
| A reaction: This is the inverse of Descartes' interaction problem, and strikes me as a straightforward common sense truth. However, if you believe in spiritual gods, this gives you a model for the interaction (however mysterious) of matter and spirit. |
| 5724 | Lions, foxes and deer have distinct characters because their minds share in their bodies [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Why are lions ferocious, foxes crafty, and deer timid? It can only be because the mind always shares in the specific growth of the body according to its seed and breed. If it were immortal and reincarnated, living things would have jumbled characters. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.743) | |
| A reaction: A nice argument which I have not encountered in modern times. Of course, even Descartes admits that the mind is intermingled with the body, but it seems that the essential character of a mind is dictated by the body. |
| 5713 | You needn't be made of laughing particles to laugh, so why not sensation from senseless seeds? [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: One can laugh without being composed of laughing particles, ..so why cannot the things that we see gifted with sensation be compounded of seeds that are wholly senseless? | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.988) | |
| A reaction: Lovely argument! You might feel driven to panpsychism in your desperation to explain the 'weirdness' of consciousness, but it would be mad to attribute laughter to basic matter, so comedy has to 'emerge' at some point. |
| 12911 | Concepts are what unite a proposition [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There must always be some basis for the connexion between the terms of a proposition, and it is to be found in their concepts. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X) | |
| A reaction: We face the problem that bothered Russell, of the unity of the proposition. We are also led to the question of HOW our concepts connect the parts of a proposition. Do concepts have valencies? Are they incomplete, as Frege suggests? |
| 8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I identify a proposition with the set of possible worlds where it is true. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.193) | |
| A reaction: As it stands, I'm baffled by this. How can 'it is raining' be a set of possible worlds? I assume it expands to refer to the truth-conditions, among possibilities as well as actualities. 'It is raining' fits all worlds where it is raining. |
| 12925 | Beauty increases with familiarity [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The more one is familiar with things, the more beautiful one finds them. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1688.01.4/14) | |
| A reaction: This is always the reply given to those who say that science kills our sense of beauty. The first step in aesthetic life is certainly to really really pay attention to things. |
| 6611 | One man's meat is another man's poison [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: What is food to one may be literally poison to others. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.638) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the origin of the well-known saying. This is not relativism of perception, but a relativism of how individuals actually respond to the world. It sums up the position with, say, the operas of Wagner. |
| 5730 | Our bodies weren't created to be used; on the contrary, their creation makes a use possible [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in our bodies was born in order that we might be able to use it, but the thing born creates the use. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], IV.834) | |
| A reaction: This remark (strongly opposed to Aristotle's view of human function and nature) raises the obvious question of why the body is so very useful for staying alive. Most of its uses are not random. Lucretius would abandon this view if he read Darwin. |
| 5726 | The dead are no different from those who were never born [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: One who no longer is cannot suffer, or differ in any way from one who has never been born. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.867) | |
| A reaction: There is a special kind of pain in being poor if you were once rich, which is not suffered by those who experience only poverty. Lucretius is right, but we are concerned with how we feel now, not with how we won't feel once dead. |
| 12927 | Happiness is advancement towards perfection [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Happiness, or lasting contentment, consists of continual advancement towards a greater perfection. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1690.03.23) | |
| A reaction: To the modern mind this smacks of the sort of hubris to which only the religious mind can aspire, but it's still rather nice. The idea of grubby little mammals approaching perfection sounds wrong, but which other animal has even thought of perfection? |
| 5705 | Nature only wants two things: freedom from pain, and pleasure [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nature only clamours for two things, a body free from pain, a mind released from worry and fear for the enjoyment of pleasurable sensation. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.21) | |
| A reaction: I can't help agreeing with those (like Aristotle) who consider this a very demeaning view of human life. See Idea 99. Bentham agrees with Lucretius (Idea 3777). I think they are largely right, but not entirely. Other motives are possible than sensations. |
| 5716 | Nature runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nature is free and uncontrolled by proud masters and runs the universe by herself without the aid of gods. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.1094) | |
| A reaction: A nice remark. This apparent personification of nature implies the application of laws to an essentially passive reality. See Idea 5442 and Nature|Laws of Nature|Essentialism for a different view. |
| 5704 | There can be no centre in infinity [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: There can be no centre in infinity. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.1069) | |
| A reaction: This is highly significant, because if we can establish that the universe is infinite (as Epicurus believes), it follows that the human race cannot be at the centre of it, as the Ptolemaic/medieval view proposed. |
| 5703 | The universe must be limitless, since there could be nothing outside to limit it [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The universe is not bounded in any direction. If it were, it would necessarily have a limit somewhere, but a thing cannot have a limit unless there is something outside to limit it. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.959) | |
| A reaction: This is a subtler argument than the mere enquiry about why you would have to stop at the end of the universe. It still seems a nice argument, though Einstein's curvature of space seems to have thwarted it. |
| 5693 | Everything is created and fed by nature from atoms, and they return to atoms in death [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The ultimate realities of heaven and the gods are the atoms, from which nature creates all things and increases and feeds them, and into which, when they perish, nature again resolves them. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.46) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right to me. Nothing in modern particle theory and string theory has refuted this claim. But what makes the atoms move, and what makes them combine in an orderly way? Is the orderliness of atoms made of atoms? Essences? |
| 5701 | If an object is infinitely subdivisible, it will be the same as the whole universe [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: If there are no atoms, the smallest bodies will have infinite parts, since they can be endlessly halved. ..But then there will be no difference between the smallest thing and the whole universe, as they will equally have infinite parts. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.620) | |
| A reaction: Another argument which remains effective even now. There must surely (intuitively) be more divisions possible in a large object than in a small one? Unless of course there were many different sizes of infinity…. See Cantor. |
| 5708 | In downward motion, atoms occasionally swerve slightly for no reason [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: When atoms are travelling straight down through empty space by their own weight, at quite indeterminate times and places they swerve ever so little from their course. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.217) | |
| A reaction: Never a popular theory because it seems to breach the Principle of Sufficient Reason (Ideas 306 + 3646). This seems to be the beginning of a strong need for the concept of free will, and an underlying explanation. Most thinkers put mind outside nature. |
| 15955 | I think the corpuscular theory, rather than forms or qualities, best explains particular phenomena [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I still subscribe fully to the corpuscular theory in the explanation of particular phenomena; in this sphere it is of no value to speak of forms or qualities. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 14.07.1686) | |
| A reaction: I am puzzled by Garber's summary in Idea 12728, and a bit unclear on Leibniz's views on atoms. More needed. |
| 8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Lewis thinks it is a major defect in a theory of causation that it builds in the condition that the time of the cause precede that of the effect: that cause precedes effect is something we ought to explain (which his counterfactual theory claims to do). | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Hartry Field - Causation in a Physical World | |
| A reaction: My immediate reaction is that the chances of explaining such a thing are probably nil, and that we might as well just accept the direction of causation as a given. Even philosophers balk at the question 'why doesn't time go backwards?' |
| 8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One might stipulate that a cause must always precede its effect, but I reject this solution. It won't solve the problem of epiphenomena, it rejects a priori any backwards causation, and it trivializes defining time-direction through causation. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.203) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Not strong arguments, I would say. Maybe apparent causes are never epiphenomenal. Maybe backwards causation is impossible. Maybe we must use time to define causal direction, and not vice versa. |
| 10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: We sometimes single out one among all the causes of some event and call it 'the' cause. ..We may select the abnormal causes, or those under human control, or those we deem good or bad, or those we want to talk about. This is invidious discrimination. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973]) | |
| A reaction: This is the standard view expressed by Mill - presumably the obvious empiricist line. But if we specify 'the pre-conditions' for an event, we can't just mention ANY fact prior to the effect - there is obvious relevance. So why not for 'the' cause as well? |
| 8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: In present-day regularity analyses, a cause is defined (roughly) as any member of any minimal set of actual conditions that are jointly sufficient, given the laws, for the existence of the effect. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.193) | |
| A reaction: This is the view Lewis is about to reject. It seem to summarise the essence of the Mackie INUS theory. This account would make the presence of oxygen a cause of almost every human event. |
| 8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: In the regularity analysis of causes, instead of c causing e, c might turn out to be an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or an inefficacious effect of a genuine cause, or a pre-empted cause (by some other cause) of e. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.194) | |
| A reaction: These are Lewis's reasons for rejecting the general regularity account, in favour of his own particular counterfactual account. It is unlikely that c would be regularly pre-empted or epiphenomenal. If we build time's direction in, it won't be an effect. |
| 17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
| Full Idea: The Humean idea, developed by Lewis, is that rather than being sufficient for their effects, causes are (counterfactual) necessary for their effects. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Causation and the Manifestation of Powers p.162 |
| 17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's basic account has a basic causal relation, counterfactual dependence, and the general causal relation is the ancestral of this basic one. ...This is motivated by counterfactual dependence failing to be general because of the pre-emption problem. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Alexander Bird - Causation and the Manifestation of Powers p.161 | |
| A reaction: It is so nice when you struggle for ages with a topic, and then some clever person summarises it clearly for you. |
| 8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Some counterfactuals are based on non-causal laws, such as Newton's Third Law of Motion. 'If no force one way, then no force the other'. Lewis's counterfactual analysis implies that one force causes the other, which is not the case. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience 5.2 | |
| A reaction: So what exactly does 'cause' my punt to move forwards? Basing causal laws on counterfactual claims looks to me like putting the cart before the horse. |
| 8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: My (counterfactual) analysis is meant to apply to causation in particular cases; it is not an analysis of causal generalizations. Those presumably quantify over particulars, but it is hard to match natural language to the quantifiers. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.195) | |
| A reaction: What authority could you have for asserting a counterfactual claim, if you only had one observation? Isn't the counterfactual claim the hallmark of a generalisation? For one case, 'if not-c, then not-e' is just a speculation. |
| 8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One event is the cause of another iff there exists a causal chain leading from the first to the second. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causation [1973], p.200) | |
| A reaction: It will be necessary to both explain and identify a 'chain'. Some chains are extremely tenuous (Alexander could stop a barrel of beer). Go back a hundred years, and the cause of any present event is everything back then. |
| 12907 | Each possible world contains its own laws, reflected in the possible individuals of that world [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: As there exist an infinite number of possible worlds, there exists also an infinite number of laws, some peculiar to one world, some to another, and each individual of any one world contains in the concept of him the laws of his world. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.06) | |
| A reaction: Since Leibniz's metaphysics is thoroughly God-driven, he will obviously allow God to create any laws He wishes, and hence scientific essentialism seems to be rejected, even though Leibniz is keen on essences. Unless the stuff is different... |
| 17004 | Nothing can break the binding laws of eternity [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Nothing has power to break the binding laws of eternity. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], 5.56) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be virtually the only remark from the ancient world suggesting that there are 'laws' of nature, so I'm guessing it is a transient metaphor, not a theory about nature. 'Even the gods must bow to necessity'. |
| 4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis can elucidate the logic of counterfactuals on the assumption that you are not at all puzzled about what a law of nature is. But if you are puzzled about this, it cannot contribute anything towards resolving your puzzlement. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Causation [1973]) by L. Jonathan Cohen - The Problem of Natural Laws p.219 | |
| A reaction: This seems like a penetrating remark. The counterfactual theory is wrong, partly because it is epistemological instead of ontological, and partly because it refuses to face the really difficult problem, of what is going on out there. |
| 5696 | If there were no space there could be no movement, or even creation [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: We see movement everywhere, but if there were no empty space, things would be denied the power of movement - or rather, they could not possibly have come into existence, embedded as they would have been in motionless matter. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.342) | |
| A reaction: This still seems a good argument, if reality is made of particles. People can move in a crowd until it becomes too dense. |
| 5706 | Atoms move themselves [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Atoms move themselves. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.133) | |
| A reaction: Something has to move itself, I suppose, but then that could be psuché, giving us free will (see Idea 1424). Why does Epicurus need the 'swerve' if atoms are self-movers? See Idea 5708. |
| 12924 | Motion alone is relative, but force is real, and establishes its subject [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Motion in itself separated from force is merely relative, and one cannot establish its subject. But force is something real and absolute. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1688.01.4/14) | |
| A reaction: The striking phrase here is that force enables us to 'establish its subject'. That is, force is at the heart of reality, and hence, through causal relations, individuates objects. That's how I read it. |
| 5700 | It is quicker to break things up than to assemble them [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Anything can be more speedily disintegrated than put together again. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.558) | |
| A reaction: Clearly the concept of entropy was around long before anyone tried to give a systematic or mathematical account of it. |
| 5698 | We can only sense time by means of movement, or its absence [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: It must not be claimed that anyone can sense time by itself apart from the movement of things or their restful immobility. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.465) | |
| A reaction: This seems a remarkably Einsteinian remark, though he is only talking of the epistemology of the matter, not the ontology. We are not far from the concept of space-time here. |
| 5715 | This earth is very unlikely to be the only one created [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: It is in the highest degree unlikely that this earth and sky is the only one to have been created. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.1057) | |
| A reaction: I can only admire the science fiction imagination of this, which roughly agrees with the assessment of modern cosmologists. We think imagination was cramped in the ancient world, and now wanders free - but that is not so. |
| 5694 | Nothing can be created by divine power out of nothing [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: In studying the workings of nature, our starting-point will be this principle: nothing can ever be created by divine power out of nothing. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.152) | |
| A reaction: This claim seems to cry out for a bit of empiricist caution. What observation has convinced Lucretius that creation out of nothing is impossible? The early Christians switched to the view that divine creation is 'ex nihilo' - out of nothing. |
| 5699 | If matter wasn't everlasting, everything would have disappeared by now [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: If the matter in things had not been everlasting, everything by now would have gone back to nothing, and the things we see would be the product of rebirth out of nothing. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], I.544) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 1431, which is Aquinas's Third Way of proving God. Aquinas thinks there must be a necessary being outside of the system, but Lucretius thinks there must be some necessary existence within the system (as Hume had suggested). |
| 5707 | The universe can't have been created by gods, because it is too imperfect [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The universe was certainly not created for us by divine power: it is so full of imperfections. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.180) | |
| A reaction: This is certainly a problem if God is 'supremely perfect', as Descartes proposed, because then the universe would also have to be supremely perfect. See Idea 2114 for a possible answer from Leibniz. Hume agrees with Epicurus about design. |
| 12909 | Everything, even miracles, belongs to order [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Everything, even miracles, belongs to order. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X) | |
| A reaction: This is very reminiscent of Plato, for whom there was no more deeply held belief than that the cosmos is essentially orderly. Coincidences are a nice problem, if they are events with no cause. |
| 5030 | Miracles are extraordinary operations by God, but are nevertheless part of his design [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Miracles, or the extraordinary operations of God, none the less belong within the general order; they are in conformity with the principal designs of God, and consequently are included in the notion of this universe, which is the result of those designs. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.05) | |
| A reaction: Some philosophers just make up things to suit themselves. What possible grounds can he have for claiming this? At best this is tautological, saying that, by definition, if anything at all happens, it must be part of God's design. Move on to Hume… |
| 5710 | Gods are tranquil and aloof, and have no need of or interest in us [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: The nature of deity is to enjoy immortal existence in utter tranquillity, aloof and detached from our affairs. It is free from all pain and peril, strong in its own resources, exempt from any need of us, indifferent to our merits and immune from anger. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], II.652) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the seed of late seventeenth century deism - the idea of a Creator who is now absent, and ignores our prayers. At that time 'Epicurean' became a synonym for atheist, but Epicureans never quite reached that point. |
| 5731 | Why does Jupiter never hurl lightning from a blue sky? [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Why does Jupiter never hurl his thunderbolt upon the earth and let loose his thunder out of a sky that is wholly blue? | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], VI.400) | |
| A reaction: Nice question! It really doesn't take very much to see through superstition, and the fact that most people believed such things shows how staggeringly uncritical they were in their thinking, until philosophers appeared and taught them how to reason. |
| 5722 | For a separated spirit to remain sentient it would need sense organs attached to it [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: If spirit is immortal and can remain sentient when divorced from our body, we must credit it with possession of five senses; but eyes or nostrils or hand or tongue or ears cannot be attached to a disembodied spirit. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.624) | |
| A reaction: This is a powerful argument against immortality. If you are going to see, you must interact with photons; to hear you must respond to compression waves; to smell you must react to certain molecules. Immortality without those would be a bit dull. |
| 5725 | An immortal mind couldn't work harmoniously with a mortal body [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: It is crazy to couple a mortal object with an eternal and suppose that they can work in harmony and mutually interact. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.799) | |
| A reaction: An interesting thought, though not a terrible persuasive argument. A god would indeed be a bit restless if it were chained to a human being, but it would presumably knuckle down to the task if firmly instructed to do it by Zeus. |
| 12912 | Immortality without memory is useless [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Immortality without memory would be useless. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X) | |
| A reaction: I would say that having a mind of any sort needs memory. The question for immortality is whether it extends back to human life. See 'Wuthering Heights' (c. p90) for someone who remembers Earth as so superior to paradise that they long to return there. |
| 5720 | Spirit is mortal [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Spirit is mortal. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.542) | |
| A reaction: This is asserted at an historical moment when immortality is beginning to grip everyone's imagination. |
| 12917 | The soul is indestructible and always self-aware [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Not only is the soul indestructible, but it always knows itself and remains self-conscious. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.11) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am not even self-aware during much of my sleeping hours, and I would say that I cease to be self-aware if I am totally absorbed in something on which I concentrate. |
| 5721 | The mind is very small smooth particles, which evaporate at death [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: Since the substance of the mind is extraordinarily mobile, it must consist of particles exceptionally small and smooth and round, ..so that, when the spirit has escaped from the body, the outside of the limbs appears intact and there is no loss of weight. | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.201) | |
| A reaction: Lucretius is wonderfully attentive to interesting evidence. He goes on to compare it to the evaporation of perfume. The fine-grained connections of the brain are not far off what he is proposing. |
| 5723 | If spirit is immortal and enters us at birth, why don't we remember a previous existence? [Lucretius] |
| Full Idea: If the spirit is by nature immortal and is slipped into the body at birth, why do we retain no memory of an earlier existence, no impress of antecedent events? | |
| From: Lucretius (On the Nature of the Universe [c.60 BCE], III.670) | |
| A reaction: Plato took the view that we do recall previous existence, as seen in our innate ideas. This problem forced the Christian church into the uncomfortable claim that God creates the soul at conception, but that it then goes on to immortality. |
| 12918 | Animals have souls, but lack consciousness [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It appears probable that animals have souls although they lack consciousness. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.11) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would say that they lack souls but have consciousness, but then I am in no better position to know the answer than Leibniz was. Arnauld asks what would happen to the souls of 100,000 silkworms if they caught fire! |