4 ideas
13197 | The notion of substance is one of the keys to true philosophy [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I consider the notion of substance to be one of the keys to the true philosophy. ....I imagine that philosophers will one day know the notion of substance a bit better than they do now. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomas Burnett [1703], 1699.01.20/30) | |
A reaction: This is a controversial remark at this historical moment, when the apparent Aristotelian commitment to substances was becoming discredited. Personally I would eliminate substance, but not just because physicists don't refer to it. |
7319 | If we give up synonymy, we have to give up significance, meaning and sense [Grice/Strawson] |
Full Idea: If we are to give up the notion of sentence-synonymy as senseless, we must give up the notion of sentence-significance (of a sentence having meaning) as senseless too. But then perhaps we might as well give up the notion of sense. | |
From: P Grice / P Strawson (In Defense of a Dogma [1956]), quoted by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.2 | |
A reaction: This is very prescient. Nearly all American philosophers seem to embrace Quine's view of analyticity (the philosophical equivalent of Americans putting a man on the moon?), but have they digested the implications (which Quine later largely admits)? |
7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius. | |
From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism | |
A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny. |
13198 | Gravity is within matter because of its structure, and it can be explained. [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I believe that both gravity and elasticity are in matter only because of the structure of the system and can be explained mechanically or through impulsion. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomas Burnett [1703], 1699 draft) | |
A reaction: The significance of this remark is that gravity is held (in full knowledge of Newton's work) to be within matter, and not imposed from the outside. I believe we now postulate a particle as part of the explanation. |