36 ideas
| 2098 | The principle of sufficient reason is needed if we are to proceed from maths to physics [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In order to proceed from mathematics to physics the principle of sufficient reason is necessary, that nothing happens without there being a reason why it should be thus rather than otherwise. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], §2) |
| 3646 | There is always a reason why things are thus rather than otherwise [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Nothing happens without a sufficient reason why it should be thus rather than otherwise. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 3.2) |
| 2104 | No reason could limit the quantity of matter, so there is no limit [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is no possible reason which could limit the quantity of matter; therefore there cannot in fact be any such limitation. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.21) |
| 15533 | We can quantify over fictions by quantifying for real over their names [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Substitutionalists simulate quantification over fictional characters by quantifying for real over fictional names. | |
| From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.159) | |
| A reaction: I would say that a fiction is a file of conceptual information, identified by a label. The label brings baggage with it, and there is no existence in the label. |
| 15534 | We could quantify over impossible objects - as bundles of properties [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: We can quantify over Meinongian objects by quantifying for real over property bundles (such as the bundle of roundness and squareness). | |
| From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.159) |
| 15532 | 'Allists' embrace the existence of all controversial entities; 'noneists' reject all but the obvious ones [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: An expansive friend of the controversial entities who says they all exist may be called an 'allist'; a tough desert-dweller who says that none of them exist may be called a 'noneist'. | |
| From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.152) | |
| A reaction: Lewis gives examples of the obvious and the controversial entities. Lewis implies that he himself is in between. The word 'desert' is a reference to Quine. |
| 15535 | We can't accept a use of 'existence' that says only some of the things there are actually exist [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: If 'existence' is understood so that it can be a substantive thesis that only some of the things there are exist, we will have none of it. | |
| From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.163) | |
| A reaction: Lewis is a strong advocate, following Quine, of the univocal sense of the word 'exist', and I agree with them. |
| 19385 | All simply substances are in harmony, because they all represent the one universe [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: All simple substances will always have a harmony among themselves, because they always represent the same universe. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], V §91), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz | |
| A reaction: We can accept that the universe itself does not contain contradictions (how could it), but it is a leap of faith to say that all monads represent the universe well enough to avoid contradictions. Maps can contradict one another. |
| 21346 | The ratio between two lines can't be a feature of one, and cannot be in both [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If the ratio of two lines L and M is conceived as abstracted from them both, without considering which is the subject and which the object, which will then be the subject? We cannot say both, for then we should have an accident in two subjects. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5th Paper, §47), quoted by John Heil - Relations 'External' | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Leibniz is rejecting external relations as having any status in ontology. It looks like a mistake (originating in Aristotle) to try to shoehorn the ontology of relations into the substance-properties framework. |
| 3772 | The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The will, in the beginning, is entirely produced by desire. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of simplistic psychology that modern philosophers tend to avoid. Personally I am more Kantian. I will and desire that the answer to 3+2=? is 5, simply because it is true. Mill must realise we can will ourselves to desire something. |
| 3769 | With early training, any absurdity or evil may be given the power of conscience [Mill] |
| Full Idea: There is hardly anything so absurd or so mischievous that it may not, by means of early sanctions and influence, be made to act on the human mind with all the influence of conscience. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Like this! Think of all the people who have had weird upbringings, and end up feeling guilty about absurd things. Conscience just summarise upbringing and social conventions. |
| 3767 | Motive shows the worth of the agent, but not of the action [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The motive has nothing to do with the morality of the action, though much with the worth of the agent. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I think it is an error to try to separate these too sharply. Morality can't be purely consequential, because it would make earthquakes immoral. Actions indicate the worth of agents. |
| 3771 | Virtues only have value because they achieve some further end [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Utilitarians believe that actions and dispositions are only virtuous because they promote another end than virtue. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
| 3768 | Orthodox morality is the only one which feels obligatory [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The customary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated, is the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of being in itself obligatory. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.3) |
| 7202 | The English believe in the task of annihilating evil for the victory of good [Nietzsche on Mill] |
| Full Idea: One continues to believe in good and evil: in such a way that one feels the victory of good and the annihilation of evil to be a task (- this is English; a typical case is that shallow-headed John Stuart Mill). | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Writings from Late Notebooks 11[148]e | |
| A reaction: The poor old English try very hard to be clear, sensible, practical and realistic, and get branded as 'shallow' for their pains. Nietzsche was a deeper thinker than Mill, but I would prefer Mill to Heidegger any day. |
| 5935 | Mill's qualities of pleasure is an admission that there are other good states of mind than pleasure [Ross on Mill] |
| Full Idea: Mill's introduction of quality of pleasures into the hedonistic calculus is an unconscious departure from hedonism and a half-hearted admission that there are other qualities than pleasantness in virtue of which states of mind are good. | |
| From: comment on John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) by W. David Ross - The Right and the Good §VI | |
| A reaction: Mill argues that experienced people prefer some pleasures to others, but ducks the question of why they might prefer them. It can only be because they have some further desirable quality on top of the equal amount of pleasure. |
| 3764 | Actions are right if they promote pleasure, wrong if they promote pain [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
| 3776 | Utilitarianism only works if everybody has a totally equal right to happiness [Mill] |
| Full Idea: The Greatest Happiness Principle is a mere form of empty words unless one person's happiness, supposed equal in degree, is counted for exactly as much as another's (Bentham's "everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one"). | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 3765 | Only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
| 3763 | Ultimate goods such as pleasure can never be proved to be good [Mill] |
| Full Idea: What can be proved good must be so by being shown to be a means to something admitted to be good without proof. Music is good because it produces pleasure, but what proof is it possible to give that pleasure is good? | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.1) |
| 3766 | Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.2) |
| 3770 | General happiness is only desirable because individuals desire their own happiness [Mill] |
| Full Idea: No reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.4) |
| 6697 | Moral rules protecting human welfare are more vital than local maxims [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Moral rules which forbid mankind to hurt one another are more vital to human well-being than any maxims about some department of human affairs; ..though in particular cases a social duty is so important, as to overrule any general maxim of justice. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861]), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: The qualification is realistic, but raises the question of whether an 'act' calculation will always overrule any 'rule'. Maybe rule utilitirianism is just act utilitarianism, but ensuring that the calculations are long-term and extensive. (1871 edn) |
| 3774 | Rights are a matter of justice, not of benevolence [Mill] |
| Full Idea: Wherever there is a right, the case is one of justice, and not of the virtue of benevolence. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 3773 | No individual has the right to receive our benevolence [Mill] |
| Full Idea: No one has a moral right to our generosity or beneficence, because we are not morally bound to practise those virtues towards any given individual. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 3775 | A right is a valid claim to society's protection [Mill] |
| Full Idea: When we call anything a person's right, we mean that he has a valid claim on society to protect him in the possession of it. | |
| From: John Stuart Mill (Utilitarianism [1861], Ch.5) |
| 2102 | Atomism is irrational because it suggests that two atoms can be indistinguishable [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There are no two individuals indiscernible from one another - leaves, or drops of water, for example. This is an argument against atoms, which, like the void, are opposed to the principles of a true metaphysic. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.04) |
| 2105 | Things are infinitely subdivisible and contain new worlds, which atoms would make impossible [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The least corpuscle is actually subdivided ad infinitum and contains a world of new created things, which this universe would lack if this corpuscle were an atom. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.PS) |
| 2106 | The only simple things are monads, with no parts or extension [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: According to me there is nothing simple except true monads, which have no parts and no extensions. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5.24) |
| 20965 | Leibniz upheld conservations of momentum and energy [Leibniz, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: In place of Descartes's conservation of 'quantity of motion', Leibniz upheld both the conservation of linear momentum and the conservation of kinetic energy. | |
| From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5th paper) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness App 2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that momentum involves velocity (which includes direction) rather than speed. Leibniz more or less invented the concept of 'energy' ('vis viva'). Papineau says these two leave no room for causation by mental substance. |
| 2103 | The idea that the universe could be moved forward with no other change is just a fantasy [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: To say that God could cause the universe to move forward in a straight line or otherwise without changing it in any other way is another fanciful supposition. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.14) |
| 2100 | Space and time are purely relative [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I have more than once stated that I held space to be something purely relative, like time. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 3.4) |
| 2107 | No time exists except instants, and instants are not even a part of time, so time does not exist [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: How could a thing exist, no part of which ever exists? In the case of time, nothing exists but instants, and an instant is not even a part of time. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5.49) |
| 2101 | If everything in the universe happened a year earlier, there would be no discernible difference [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: To ask why God did not make everything a year sooner would be reasonable if time were something apart from temporal things, but time is just the succession of things, which remains the same if the universe is created a year sooner. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 3.6) |
| 22894 | If time were absolute that would make God's existence dependent on it [Leibniz, by Bardon] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz argues that if time is a thing in itself, and God is 'in' time, then God would be dependent for His existence on the existence of time. | |
| From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 3 'Newton' | |
| A reaction: Hence Leibniz says time is merely relations between events. Not sure what he thinks an event is. What is God made of? Is there some divine matter upon which God's existence must depend? |
| 2099 | The existence of God, and all metaphysics, follows from the Principle of Sufficient Reason [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: By this principle alone, that there must be a sufficient reason why things are thus rather than otherwise, I prove the existence of the Divinity, and all the rest of metaphysics or natural theology. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], §2) |