Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity', 'The Sceptical Chemist' and 'Identity in Substances and True Propositions'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads
19405 Substances are in harmony, because they each express the one reality in themselves [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Every substance expresses the whole sequence of the universe in accordance with its own viewpoint or relationship to the rest, so that all are in perfect correspondence with one another.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Identity in Substances and True Propositions [1686], p.98)
     A reaction: Thus 'expression' (something like mapping what is exterior) is the mechanism through which God achieves harmony in the universe. Instants of time are said to be successive moments of perfect harmony.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
13128 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins]
     Full Idea: 'Ultimate sortals' are said to be non-subordinated, disjoint from one another, and uniquely paired with each object. Because of this, the ultimate sortal cannot be a satisfactory explication of the notion of an ontological category.
     From: comment on David Wiggins (Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity [1971], p.75) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §26
     A reaction: My strong intuitions are that Wiggins is plain wrong, and Westerhoff gives the most promising reasons for my intuition. The simplest point is that objects can obviously belong to more than one category.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
15961 I don't see how mere moving matter can lead to the bodies of men and animals, and especially their seeds [Boyle]
     Full Idea: I confess I cannot well conceive how from matter, barely put into motion and left to itself, there could emerge such curious fabricks as the bodies of men and perfect animals, and more admirably contrived parcels of matter, as seeds of living creatures.
     From: Robert Boyle (The Sceptical Chemist [1661], p.569), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
     A reaction: This is here to show that one of the most brilliant intellects of the seventeenth century thought carefully about this question and couldn't answer it. Natural selection really was a rather clever idea.