|
5060
|
All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
What (in the analysis of substances) exist ultimately are simple substances - namely, souls, or, if you prefer a more general terms, 'monads', which are without parts.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §7)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to me to be atomistic panpsychism. He is opposed to physical atomism, because infinite divisibility seems obvious, but unity is claimed to be equally obvious in the world of the mental. Does this mean bricks are made of souls? Odd.
|
|
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.
|
|
21991
|
The middle class gain freedom through property, but workers can only free all of humanity [Marx, by Singer]
|
|
Full Idea:
Where the middle class can win freedom for themselves on the basis of rights to property - thus excluding others from their freedom - the working class have nothing but their title as human beings. They only liberate themselves by liberating humanity.
|
|
From:
report of Karl Marx (Contrib to Critique of Hegel's Phil of Right [1844]) by Peter Singer - Marx 4
|
|
A reaction:
Individual workers might gain freedom via education, marriage, or entrepreneurship, or by opting for total simplicity of life, but in general Marx seems to be right about this. But we must ask what sort of 'freedom' is needed.
|
|
5059
|
Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
In all of nature efficient causes correspond to final causes, because everything proceeds from a cause which is not only powerful, but wise; and with the rule of power through efficient causes, there is involved the rule of wisdom through final causes.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §5)
|
|
A reaction:
Nowadays this carrot-and-stick view of causation is unfashionable, but I won't rule it out. The deepest 'why?' we can ask won't just go away. This unity by a divine mind strikes me as too simple, but Leibniz is right to try to unify Aristotelian causes.
|