Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'De Cive' and 'In Metaphysics'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence

16660	Are things distinct if they are both separate, or if only one of them can be separate? [Duns Scotus, by Pasnau]
	Full Idea: Later standard theories said that a real distinction obtains between two things that can each exist without the other. For Scotus a real distinction requires only that one of the pair be able to exist without the other.
	From: report of John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], V.5-6 n91) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.5
	A reaction: His example is the similarity relation, which is independent of the whiteness on which it is based (since the other thing can become non-white).

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance

16626	Substance is only grasped under the general heading of 'being' [Duns Scotus]
	Full Idea: No substance is understood in its own right, except in the most universal of concepts, namely of 'being'.
	From: John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], III n. 116), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.3
	A reaction: This is a fairly standard scholastic pessimism about knowing anything about substance. The modern view suggests that actually scientists know 'substance' pretty well.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

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.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 1. War / c. Combatants

23609	I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: If I wage war at the commandment of my Prince, conceiving the war to be justly undertaken, I do not therefore do unjustly, but rather if I refuse to do it, arrogating to myself the knowledge of what is just and unjust, which pertains only to my Prince.
	From: Thomas Hobbes (De Cive [1642], 12.II), quoted by Jeff McMahan - Killing in War 2.6
	A reaction: Hobbes early says that Princes make things just by commanding them. This presumably assumes divine authority in the Prince. This is, of course, ancient pernicious nonsense.