88 ideas
19359 | Leibniz aims to give coherent rational support for empiricism [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's philosophy largely serves to justify and enable a coherent empirical account of the world. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.I | |
A reaction: A nice counter to the simplistic idea of Locke as empiricist and Leibniz as rationalist. Leibniz is explicit that science needs a separate 'metaphysics' to underpin it. Perkins says Locke constructs experience, and Leibniz analyses it. |
3656 | The greatest good for a state is true philosophers [Descartes] |
Full Idea: The greatest good which can exist in a state is to have true philosophers. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
A reaction: …because they understand true reality, especially the Good. |
13086 | Metaphysics is a science of the intelligible nature of being [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, metaphysics is above all a science of the intelligible nature of being. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 4.3.1 | |
A reaction: [Their footnote gives two quotes in support] I could take this as my motto. We are not studying the 'nature of being', because we can't. We are studying what is 'intelligible' about it; my thesis is that the need for intelligibility imposes an order. |
16710 | Leibniz tried to combine mechanistic physics with scholastic metaphysics [Leibniz, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Leibniz made a sustained attempt to combine a mechanistic physics with something like a scholastic metaphysics. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.1 | |
A reaction: This seems to me clear enough, and a lot of current philosophers seem to underestimate how Aristotelian Leibniz was. |
16897 | Reason is the faculty for grasping apriori necessary truths [Leibniz, by Burge] |
Full Idea: Leibniz actually characterises reason as the faculty for apprehending priori, necessary truths. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Tyler Burge - Frege on Apriority (with ps) 2 | |
A reaction: No wonder it is called the Age of Reason when the claims are this grandiose. |
3346 | For Leibniz rationality is based on non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Leibniz distinguished two fundamental principles of rationality - the principle of non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.18 |
3347 | Leibniz said the principle of sufficient reason is synthetic a priori, since its denial is not illogical [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Leibniz assigns synthetic a priori status to the principle of sufficient reason, readily conceding that one can deny it without fear of inconsistency. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.18 |
8627 | Leibniz is inclined to regard all truths as provable [Leibniz, by Frege] |
Full Idea: Leibniz has an inclination to regard all truths as provable. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §15 | |
A reaction: Leibniz sounds like the epitome of Enlightenment optimism about the powers of reason. Could God prove every truth? It's a nice thought. |
9147 | Number cannot be defined as addition of ones, since that needs the number; it is a single act of abstraction [Fine,K on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's talk of the addition of ones cannot define number, since it cannot be specified how often they are added without using the number itself. Number must be an organic unity of ones, achieved by a single act of abstraction. | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence §1 | |
A reaction: I doubt whether 'abstraction' is the right word for this part of the process. It seems more like a 'gestalt'. The first point is clearly right, that it is the wrong way round if you try to define number by means of addition. |
19375 | The continuum is not divided like sand, but folded like paper [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
Full Idea: Leibniz said the division of the continuum should not be conceived 'to be like the division of sand into grains, but like that of a tunic or a sheet of paper into folds'. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], A VI iii 555) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz | |
A reaction: This from the man who invented calculus. This thought might apply well to the modern physicist's concept of a 'field'. |
18080 | A tangent is a line connecting two points on a curve that are infinitely close together [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: We have only to keep in mind that to find a tangent means to draw a line that connects two points of a curve at an infinitely small distance. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.1 | |
A reaction: [The quote can be tracked through Kitcher's footnote] |
18081 | Nature uses the infinite everywhere [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Nature uses the infinite in everything it does. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.1 | |
A reaction: [The quote can be tracked through Kitcher's footnote] He seems to have had in mind the infinitely small. |
7565 | Leibniz proposes monads, since there must be basic things, which are immaterial in order to have unity [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: Leibniz believes in monads because it would be contrary to reason or divine wisdom if everything was compounds, down to infinity; there must be ultimate unified building-blocks; they cannot be material, for material things lack genuine unity. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.3 | |
A reaction: It is hard to discern the basis for the claim that only immaterial things can have unity. The Greeks proposed atoms, and we have no reason to think that electrons lack unity. |
10419 | If relations can be reduced to, or supervene on, monadic properties of relata, they are not real [Leibniz, by Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argued that relations could be reduced to monadic properties and so were dispensable, and some still agree, saying relations supervene on monadic properties of the relata, and are not actually real. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Chris Swoyer - Properties 7.4 | |
A reaction: At the very least a background of space and/or time seem required, in addition to any properties the relata may have. y only becomes 'to the left of x' when x appears to its right, so the relation doesn't seem to be intrinsic to y. |
13078 | Relations aren't in any monad, so they are distributed, so they are not real [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The relations which connect two monads are not in either the one or the other, but equally in both at once; and therefore properly speaking, in neither. I do not think you would wish to posit an accident which would inhere simultaneously in two subjects. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:517), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 2.4.3 | |
A reaction: Where Russell affirms relations as universals, and scholastics make them properties of individuals, Leibniz denies their reality entirely. It seems obvious that once the objects and properties are there, the relations come for free. |
16744 | All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes] |
Full Idea: There are no powers in stones and plants that are not so mysterious that they cannot be explained …from principles that are known to all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size, position, and motion of particles of matter. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], IV.187), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6 | |
A reaction: This is an invocation of 'categorical' properties, against dispositions. I take this to be quite wrong. The explanation goes the other way. What supports the structures; what drives the motion; what initiates anything? |
12713 | Forms have sensation and appetite, the latter being the ability to act on other bodies [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's form contains both sensation and appetite, and he seems to associate appetite with the ability a body has to act on another. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3 | |
A reaction: It strikes me (you may be surprised to hear) that this concept is not unlike Nietzsche's all-mastering 'will to power'. I offer Idea 7140 in evidence. |
13087 | The essence of a thing is its real possibilities [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: In Leibniz's view, the essence of a thing is fundamentally the real possibilities of that thing. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 4.3.3 | |
A reaction: Note that the essences are individual. On the whole I would prefer Leibniz in his own words, but this is too good to lose (..but see Idea 12981). It is the aspect of Leibniz that fits perfectly with modern scientific essentialism. |
5016 | Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes] |
Full Idea: The five commonly enumerated universals are: genus, species, difference, property and accident. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59) | |
A reaction: Interestingly, this seems to be Descartes passing on his medieval Aristotelian inheritance, in which things are defined by placing them in a class, and then noting what distinguishes them within that class. |
5015 | A universal is a single idea applied to individual things that are similar to one another [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Universals arise solely from the fact that we avail ourselves of one idea in order to think of all individual things that have a certain similitude. When we understand under the same name all the objects represented by this idea, that name is universal. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59) | |
A reaction: Judging by the boldness of the pronouncement, it looks as if Descartes hasn't recognised the complexity of the problem. How do we spot a 'similarity', especially an abstraction like 'tool' or 'useful'? This sounds like Descartes trying to avoid Platonism. |
7720 | Two things can only resemble one another in some respect, and that may reintroduce a universal [Lowe] |
Full Idea: A problem for resemblance nominalism is that in saying that two particulars 'resemble' one another, it is necessary to specify in what respect they do so (e.g. colour, shape, size), and this threatens to reintroduce what appears to be talk of universals. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: We see resemblance between faces instantly, long before we can specify the 'respects' of the resemblance. This supports the Humean hard-wired view of resemblance, rather than some appeal to Platonic universals. |
12701 | Leibniz moved from individuation by whole entity to individuation by substantial form [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: By 1680 Leibniz had clearly abandoned the 'whole entity' conception of individuation, for a conception grounded in substantial form alone. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2 | |
A reaction: In other words, Leibniz became more of an Aristotelian, and more of an essentialist. |
13105 | The laws-of-the-series plays a haecceitist role [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: Leibniz takes the laws-of-the-series to play a haecceitistic role. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 7.5 | |
A reaction: Idea 13092 for law-in-the-series. He thinks that a law-in-a-series is unique to a substance, and so can individuate it. That is a pretty good proposal, if anything is going to do the job. Perhaps I do believe in haecceities, as unique bundles of powers? |
16513 | Identity of a substance is the law of its persistence [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: For there to be a certain persisting law which involves the future states of that which we conceive as one and the same continuant, this is what I say constitute's a substance's identity. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:264), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 3.1 | |
A reaction: This is a key remark for those who thing 'persistence conditions' are basic to metaphysics. I'm not so sure. |
12035 | Leibniz bases pure primitive entities on conjunctions of qualitative properties [Leibniz, by Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Leibniz is committed with apparent consistency to both a purely qualitative character of all thisnesses, and to primitiveness of individual identity. He regards thisnesses as conjunctions of simpler, logically independent suchnesses. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 5 | |
A reaction: Hence Leibniz is held to say that all of the qualitative properties are 'essential' to the object, since all of them are needed to constitute its identity. Hence absolutely nothing about an object, even an electron, could be different, which is daft. |
16630 | If we perceive an attribute, we infer the existence of some substance [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Based on perceiving the presence of some attribute, we conclude there must also be present an existing thing or substance to which it can be attributed. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.52), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.1 | |
A reaction: A rainbow might be a tricky case. This illustrates the persistent belief in substances, even among philosophers who embraced the new corpuscular and mechanistic view of matter. |
5013 | A substance needs nothing else in order to exist [Descartes] |
Full Idea: By substance we can understand nothing else than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing in order to exist. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.51) | |
A reaction: Properties, of course, are the things which have dependent existence. Can properties be reduced to substances (e.g. by adopting a materialist theory of mind)? Note that Descartes does not think that substances depend on God for existence. |
13091 | Leibnizian substances add concept, law, force, form and soul [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: To the traditional idea of substance (independent, subjects of predication, active, persistent) Leibniz adds, distinctively, complete individual concept, law-of-the-series, active force, form and soul or entelechy. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.1 | |
A reaction: 'Form' seems to be Aristotelian, and 'soul' seems ridiculous. I don't think the 'complete concept' is much help. However, the 'law-in-the-series' is very interesting (Idea 13079), if employed sensibly, and 'active force' is spot-on. Powers define reality. |
7712 | On substances, Leibniz emphasises unity, Spinoza independence, Locke relations to qualities [Lowe] |
Full Idea: Later philosophers emphasised different strands of Aristotle's concept of substances: Leibniz (in his theory of monads) emphasised their unity; Spinoza emphasised their ontological independence; Locke emphasised their role in relation to qualities. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: Note that this Aristotelian idea had not been jettisoned in the late seventeenth century, unlike other Aristotelianisms. I think it is only with the success of atomism in chemistry that the idea of substance is forced to recede. |
7561 | Substances are essentially active [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, it is the very essence of substances to be sources of activity. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This makes the views of Leibniz sympathetic to modern essentialism (of which I am a fan), because it places active power at the centre of what it is to exist, rather than action being imposed on matter which is otherwise passive. |
12715 | Leibniz strengthened hylomorphism by connecting it to force in physics [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: A standard criticism of the scholastic notions of matter and form is that they are obscure and unintelligible. But in Leibniz's system they are connected directly with notions of active and passive force that play an intelligible roles in his physics. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4 | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be very appealing. Aristotle was clearly on the right lines, but just ran out of things to say, once he had pointed in the right direction. Maybe 'fields' and 'strings' can fill out the Aristotelian conception of form. |
16633 | A substance has one principal property which is its nature and essence [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Each substance has one principal property that constitutes its nature and essence, to which all its other properties are referred. Extension in length, breadth, and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought of thinking substances. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.3 | |
A reaction: Property is likely to be 'propria', which is a property distinctive of some thing, not just any old modern property. This is quite a strikingly original view of the nature of essence. Descartes despised 'substantial forms'. |
11878 | Leibniz's view (that all properties are essential) is extreme essentialism, not its denial [Leibniz, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: The view standardly attributed to Leibniz, that makes all an individual's properties essential to it should be regarded as an extreme version of essentialism, not a denial of essentialism. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.1 | |
A reaction: Wiggins disagrees, saying that Leibniz was not an essentialist, which is an interesting topic of research for those who are interested. I would take Leibniz to be not an essentialist, on that basis, as essentialism makes a distinction. See Quine on that. |
11862 | Leibniz was not an essentialist [Leibniz, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Leibniz was not an essentialist. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.2 n4 | |
A reaction: Assuming this is right, it is rather helpful, because you can read mountains of Leibniz without ever being quite sure. Mackie says he IS an extreme essentialist, treating all properties as essential. Wiggins makes more sense there. |
16504 | Two eggs can't be identical, because the same truths can't apply to both of them [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It isn't possible to have two particulars that are similar in all respects - for example two eggs - for it is necessary that some things can be said about one of them that cannot be said about the other, else they could be substituted for one another. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 2.2 | |
A reaction: [from a 'fragment' for which Wiggins gives a reference] This quotation doesn't rest the distinctness of the eggs on some intrinsic difference, but on the fact that we can say different things about the two eggs. |
8650 | Things are the same if one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's definition is as follows: Things are the same as each other, of which one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth ('salva veritate'). | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §65 | |
A reaction: Frege doesn't give a reference. (Anyone know it?). This famous definition is impressive, but has problems when the items being substituted appear in contexts of belief. 'Oedipus believes Jocasta (his mother!) would make a good wife'. |
13828 | Necessary truths are those provable from identities by pure logic in finite steps [Leibniz, by Hacking] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argued that the necessary truths are just those which can be proved from identities by pure logic in a finite number of steps. ...[232] this claim is vindicated by Gentzen's sequent calculus. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Ian Hacking - What is Logic? §01 | |
A reaction: This seems an odd idea, as if there were no necessary truths other than those for which a proof could be constructed. Sounds like intuitionism. |
13084 | How can things be incompatible, if all positive terms seem to be compatible? [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It is yet unknown to me what is the reason of the incompossibility of things, or how it is that different essences can be opposed to each other, seeing that all purely positive terms seem to be compatible. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G VII:194), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.4.4 | |
A reaction: Since 'heavy' seems straightforwardly opposed to 'light', we would have to ask what he means by 'positive'. The suspicion is that all things are compossible by definition, so it is not surprising that impossibilities are a bit puzzling. |
4307 | A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) | |
A reaction: Spinoza rejects all contingency, but this seems an interesting support for it, even though we may need a reason for something where God does not because it is self-evident. |
15883 | Leibniz narrows down God's options to one, by non-contradiction, sufficient reason, indiscernibles, compossibility [Leibniz, by Harré] |
Full Idea: Leibniz sets up increasingly stringent conditions possible worlds must meet. The weakest is non-contradiction, for truths of reason; then sufficient reason, for rational worlds; then identity of indiscernibles, for duplicates; then compossibility. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 4 | |
A reaction: [my summary of a very nice two pages by Harré] God is the source of the principles which do the narrowing down. |
18822 | Each monad expresses all its compatible monads; a possible world is the resulting equivalence class [Leibniz, by Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argued that each monad mirrors or expresses every monad with which it is compossible. Hence compossibility is an equivalence relation among monads; possible worlds may then be identified as the corresponding equivalence classes. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 6.1 | |
A reaction: [Rumfitt cites Benson Mates 1986:IV.1 for this claim] There is an analogous world of all the human minds that are in communication with one another - something like a 'culture'. |
7837 | Leibniz proposed possible worlds, because they might be evil, where God would not create evil things [Leibniz, by Stewart,M] |
Full Idea: In his early writings the principle of sufficient reason made it difficult for Leibniz to conceive of possible things;...raising this to possible worlds means God does not choose things that are evil, but chooses a world which must have evil in it. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.14 | |
A reaction: Where we think of possible worlds as explanations for conditional and counterfactual truths (I take it), Leibniz developed the original idea as part of his huge effort to achieve a consistent theodicy. |
13080 | Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: When Leibniz has the grounds of de re counterfactuals in mind, a counterpart picture, we have argued, is at work. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.2.2 | |
A reaction: If Leibniz were a 'superessentialist', then individuals would be totally worldbound (because their relations would be essential). Cover/Hawthorne argue that he is just a 'strong' essentialist, allowing possible counterparts. Quite persuasive. |
19332 | For Leibniz, divine understanding grasps every conceivable possibility [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, what is this understanding which God has? What does it contain? All possibilities in all possible combinations, that is, everything which can be conceived. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
A reaction: I like this, because it strikes me as essential that understanding should embrace possibilities as well as actualities. Perkins points out that the possibilities are restricted by an awareness of the limitations imposed by combination. |
3658 | Total doubt can't include your existence while doubting [Descartes] |
Full Idea: He who decides to doubt everything cannot nevertheless doubt that he exists while he doubts. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) |
5005 | I think, therefore I am, because for a thinking thing to not exist is a contradiction [Descartes] |
Full Idea: There is a contradiction in conceiving that what thinks does not (at the same time as it thinks) exist. Hence this conclusion I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophises in an orderly way. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.07) | |
A reaction: The classic statement of his argument. The significance here is that it seems to have the structure of an argument, as it involves 'philosophising', which leads to a 'contradiction', and hence to the famous conclusion. It is not just intuitive. |
5006 | 'Thought' is all our conscious awareness, including feeling as well as understanding [Descartes] |
Full Idea: By the word 'thought' I understand everything we are conscious of as operating in us. And that is why not only understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are here the same thing as thinking. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.09) | |
A reaction: There is a bit of tension here between Descartes' correct need to include feeling in thought for his Cogito argument, and his tendency to dismiss animal consciousness, on the grounds that they only sense things, and don't make judgements. |
5509 | Leibniz said dualism of mind and body is illusion, and there is only mind [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
Full Idea: Leibniz held that dualism of mind and body is an illusion and that both are really the same thing, and that this thing is mind. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.22 | |
A reaction: I am puzzled by this, as Leibniz is famous for the view that mind and body are parallel. See idea 5038, and also 2109 and 2596. Monads are, of course, entirely mental, and are the building blocks of reality. Clearly I (and you) must read more Leibniz. |
7568 | Leibniz is an idealist insofar as the basic components of his universe are all mental [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: To say that Leibniz is an idealist is to say that simple substances, the basic building-blocks of the universe, are all mental or at least quasi-mental in nature | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This is a bit different from the Berkelian type of idealism, which says that reality consists entirely of events within thinking minds. Is a monad the thinker or the thought? |
5012 | 'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes] |
Full Idea: The proposition 'nothing comes from nothing' is not to be considered as an existing thing, or the mode of a thing, but as a certain eternal truth which has its seat in our mind and is a common notion or axiom. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.49) | |
A reaction: There is a tension here, in his assertion that it is 'eternal', but 'not existing'. How does one distinguish an innate idea from an innate truth? 'Eternal' sounds like an external guarantee of truth, but being 'in our mind' sounds less reliable. |
7710 | Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe] |
Full Idea: According to one school of thought, perception is simply a mode of belief-acquisition,and there is no reason to suppose that any element of sensation is literally involved in perception. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Blindsight would be an obvious supporting case for this view. I think this point is crucial in understanding what is wrong with Jackson's 'knowledge argument' (involving Mary, see Idea 7377). Sensation gives knowledge, so it can't be knowledge. |
7711 | Science requires a causal theory - perception of an object must be an experience caused by the object [Lowe] |
Full Idea: Only a causal theory of perception will respect the facts of physiology and physics ...meaning a theory which maintains that for a subject to perceive a physical object the subject should enjoy some appropriate perceptual experience caused by the object. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: If I hallucinate an object, then presumably I am not allowed to say that I 'perceive' it, but that seems to make the causal theory an idle tautology. If we are in virtual reality then there aren't any objects. |
5004 | We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes] |
Full Idea: It is on the Principles, or first causes, that the knowledge of other things depends, so the Principles can be known without these last, but the other things cannot reciprocally be known without the Principles. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
A reaction: A particularly strong assertion of foundationalism, as it says that not only must the foundations exist, but also we must actually know them. This sounds false, as elementary knowledge then seems to require far too much sophistication. |
13092 | The essence of substance is the law of its changes, as in the series of numbers [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The essence of substance consists in ...the law of the sequence of changes, as in the nature of the series in numbers. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], A 6.3.326), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.2 | |
A reaction: Thus we might say, in this spirit, that the essence of number is the successor operation, as defined by Dedekind and Peano (and perhaps their amenability to inductive proof). I like this. Metaphysicians rule - they penetrate the heart of nature. |
19354 | Leibniz introduced the idea of degrees of consciousness, essential for his monads [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: The designation of degrees of conscious awareness is one of Leibniz's most significant innovations, and it is fundamental to almost every aspect of his account of monads. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.I | |
A reaction: A very important development, which seems to have been ignored by philosophers for three hundred years, since they usually treat consciousness as all-or-nothing. Introspection makes degrees obvious, and I suspect sparrows are down the scale. |
5014 | We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes] |
Full Idea: We can understand thinking without imagination or sensation, as is quite clear to anyone who attends to the matter. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53) | |
A reaction: We may certainly take it that Descartes means if it is understandable then it is logically possible. To believe that thinking could occur without imagination strikes me as an astonishing error. I take imagination to be more central than understanding. |
7714 | Personal identity is a problem across time (diachronic) and at an instant (synchronic) [Lowe] |
Full Idea: There is the question of the identity of a person over or across time ('diachronic' personal identity), and there is also the question of what makes for personal identity at a time ('synchronic' personal identity). | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be the first and most important distinction in the philosophy of personal identity, and they regularly get run together. Locke, for example, has an account of synchronic identity, which is often ignored. It applies to objects too. |
5017 | In thinking we shut ourselves off from other substances, showing our identity and separateness [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Because each one of us understands what he thinks, and that in thinking he can shut himself off from every other substance, we may conclude that each of us is really distinct from every other thinking substance and from corporeal substance. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a novel argument which requires elucidation. I can 'shut myself off from every other substance'? If I shut myself off from thinking about food, does that mean hunger is not part of me? Or convince yourself that you don't have a brother? |
5010 | Our free will is so self-evident to us that it must be a basic innate idea [Descartes] |
Full Idea: It is so evident that we are possessed of a free will that can give or withhold its assent, that this may be counted as one of the first and most common notions found innately in us. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.39) | |
A reaction: It seems to me plausible to say that we have an innate conception of our own will (our ability to make decisions), though Hume says we only learn about the will from experience, but the idea that it is absolutely 'free' might never cross our minds. |
7841 | We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The will has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them, we believe ourselves independent. It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against determinism, and which brings us to believe there are difficulties where there are none. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.16 | |
A reaction: It seems that in his notebooks Leibniz was actually a (Spinozan) determinist. So he should have been, given his view that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and his claim that mind and brain run like two clocks. (Ideas 2114 and 2596) |
5011 | There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance [Descartes] |
Full Idea: I observe two ultimate classes of things: intellectual or thinking things, pertaining to the mind or to thinking substance, and material things, pertaining to extended substance or to body. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.48) | |
A reaction: This is clear confirmation that Descartes believed the mind is a substance, rather than an insubstantial world of thinking. It leaves open the possibility of a different theory: that mind is not a substance, but is a Platonic adjunct to reality. |
5510 | Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
Full Idea: In Leibniz's panpsychism, the so-called 'physical' points are souls or spiritual 'monads'. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.23 | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that 'panpsychism' is the right description for Leibniz's theory of monads. I take panpsychism to be either a dualist or a dual aspect (or property dualism) view. Leibniz seems to believe there is strictly one substance. |
7564 | Occasionalism give a false view of natural laws, miracles, and substances [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's three objections to occasionalism are: it disturbs the concept of laws of nature used in physics; it introduces perpetual miracles; and it doesn't recognise activity of substances (leading to the Spinozan heresy that God is the only substance). | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.2 | |
A reaction: I wonder what would happen if, within the viewpoint of occasionalism, God suddenly packed up and abandoned his job? Presumably the world wouldn't disappear, so there would still be substances, but passive ones, in chaos. |
5018 | Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Even if we suppose God had united a body and a soul so closely that they couldn't be closer, and made a single thing out of the two, they would still remain distinct, because God has the power of separating them, or conserving out without the other. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60) | |
A reaction: If Descartes lost his belief in God (after discussing existence with Kant) would he cease to be a dualist? This quotation seems to be close to conceding a mind-body relationship more like supervenience than interaction. |
5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
Full Idea: What usually misleads us is that we very frequently form a judgement although we do not have an accurate perception of what we judge. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.33) | |
A reaction: This seems to me a generally accurate observation, particularly in the making of moral judgements (which was probably not what Descartes was considering). The implication is that judgements are to a large extent forced by our perceptions. |
7715 | Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe] |
Full Idea: 'Mentalese' would be neither conventional nor a means of public communication so that even to call it a language is seriously misleading. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: It is, however, supposed to contain symbolic representations which are then used as tokens for computation, so it seems close to a language, if (for example) symbolic logic or mathematics were accepted as languages. But who understands it? |
19372 | Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
Full Idea: Leibniz understood concepts as corresponding to eternal possibilities, with both concepts and their ordering having their foundation in the divine mind. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 2 'Nominalism' | |
A reaction: It is is no longer the fashion to think of concepts as 'ordered', and yet there is a multitude of dependence relations between them. |
7722 | If meaning is mental pictures, explain "the cat (or dog!) is NOT on the mat" [Lowe] |
Full Idea: If meaning is a private mental picture, what does 'the cat is NOT on the mat' mean, and how does it differ from 'the dog is not on the mat?'. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: Not insurmountable. We picture an empty mat, combined with a cat (or whatever) located somewhere else. A mental 'picture' of something shouldn't be contrued as a single image in a neat black frame. |
13467 | Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD] |
Full Idea: Leibniz seems to be the first modern philosopher to focus on sentence-sized units that he called propositions. The Empiricists among the moderns focused on word-sized units like ideas. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 2 | |
A reaction: Historically, the sentential logic of the Stoics has a claim to have started this one. I find my initial sympathies to be with the empiricists. |
19365 | Limited awareness leads to bad choices, and unconscious awareness makes us choose the bad [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, while the limits of our knowledge explain why we sometimes choose things we think are good but which turn out to be bad, the force of minute perceptions explains why we sometimes choose things that we know are bad. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.IV | |
A reaction: To be overwhelmed by selfish greed doesn't sound like a 'minute perception'. Leibniz thinks all desires are reactions to perceptions. Observing our degrees of knowledge is an interesting response to the intellectualist view of weakness of will. |
5009 | We do not praise the acts of an efficient automaton, as their acts are necessary [Descartes] |
Full Idea: We do not praise automata, although they respond exactly to the movements they were designed to produce, since their actions are performed necessarily | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37) | |
A reaction: I say we attribute responsibility when we perceive something like a 'person' as causing them. We don't blame small animals, because there is 'no one at home', but we blame children as they develop a full character and identity. We can ignore free will. |
5008 | The greatest perfection of man is to act by free will, and thus merit praise or blame [Descartes] |
Full Idea: That the will should extend widely accords with its nature, and it is the greatest perfection in man to be able to act by its means, that is, freely, and by so doing we are in peculiar way masters of our actions, and thereby merit praise or blame. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be a deep-rooted and false understanding which philosophy has inherited from theology. It doesn't strike me that there must an absolute 'buck-stop' to make us responsible. Why is it better for a decision to appear out of nowhere? |
8110 | Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection [Leibniz, by Gardner] |
Full Idea: Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 1.2.1 | |
A reaction: Well he would, wouldn't he? Swots like Leibniz are inclined to value things which only they can fully appreciate. There may be intellectual subject matter in the study of a rose, but I do not believe that it is needed to appreciate the beauty. |
7569 | Humans are moral, and capable of reward and punishment, because of memory and self-consciousness [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, it is by virtue of possessing memory and self-consciousness that human minds are moral beings, capable of reward and punishment. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.4 | |
A reaction: I like this because it makes no mention of free will (though Leibniz struggled to defend free will). I would add meta-thought (the ability to ponder and evaluate our own thinking), which makes a change of mind possible. |
7574 | Natural law theory is found in Aquinas, in Leibniz, and at the Nuremberg trials [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: Leibniz rejects Hobbes's legal positivism in favour of the older natural law theory associated with Aquinas (which says nothing can be a law unless it derives from natural justice). The older view was revived at Nuremberg, to prosecute Nazis. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.7 | |
A reaction: This seems to suggest that Hobbes and co were using Ockham's Razor to eliminate morality from the law, but that the Nuremberg situation (and modern trials in The Hague) show that there is a necessity for natural law in international situations. |
15987 | Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes] |
Full Idea: I do not accept or desire any other principle in physics than in geometry or abstract mathematics, because all the phenomena of nature may be explained by their means, and sure demonstrations can be given of them. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.64), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 7 | |
A reaction: This is his famous and rather extreme view, which might be described as hyper-pythagoreanism (by adding geometry to numbers). It seems to leave out matter, forces and activity. |
12730 | We will not try to understand natural or divine ends, or final causes [Descartes] |
Full Idea:
We will not seek for the reason of natural things from the end which God or nature has set before him in their creation |
|
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], §28) | |
A reaction: Teleology is more relevant to biology than to the other sciences, and it is hard to understand an eye without a notion of 'what it is for'. Planetary motion reveals nothing about purposes. If you demand a purpose, it becomes more baffling. |
12728 | Leibniz rejected atoms, because they must be elastic, and hence have parts [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: Leibniz held that there can be no atoms in nature, nothing perfectly solid and hard, since elasticity entails the existence of smaller parts that can move with respect to one another. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5 | |
A reaction: Thus, I suppose, we discover that atoms have mercurial electron shells. Are quarks or electrons elastic? The debate about true atoms is not over, and probably never will be. Leibniz's point is a good one. |
19374 | Microscopes and the continuum suggest that matter is endlessly divisible [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Micrographers observe qualities of larger things found in smaller things. And if this proceeds to infinity - which is possible since the continuum is divisible to infinity - any atom will be an infinite species, and there will be worlds within worlds. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], A VI ii 241) | |
A reaction: [a work of the 1670s] The microscope had a huge impact on Leibniz, much more than the telescope. |
7560 | Leibniz struggled to reconcile bodies with a reality of purely soul-like entities [Jolley on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Leibniz seems never to have made up his mind completely on how to accommodate bodies within a metaphysic which recognises only soul-like entities as fully real. | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Intro | |
A reaction: [The soul-like entities are his 'monads']. His choice must be to either say they are unreal, or that they are real and separate from the monads, or that they are a manifestation of the monads. His problem, not mine. |
16601 | Matter is not hard, heavy or coloured, but merely extended in space [Descartes] |
Full Idea: The nature of matter, or body viewed as a whole, consists not in its being something which is hard, heavy, or colored, or which in any other way affects the senses, but only in its being a thing extended in length, breadth and depth. | |
From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 04.5 |
16683 | Leibniz eventually said resistance, rather than extension, was the essence of body [Leibniz, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Leibniz eventually rejected extension altogether as part of the essence of body, and replaced it with resistance. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.5 | |
A reaction: This makes body consist of active force, rather than mere geometry. Much better. |
12725 | Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: Leibniz seeks the big picture: the nature of body as a grounding for an account of motion and its laws. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4 | |
A reaction: Garber is contrasting this with Newton's approaches, who just pleads ignorance of the bigger picture. Essentialists must beware of inventing a bigger picture simply because they desperately want a bigger picture. |
16507 | The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Nothing is permanent in a substance except the law itself which determines the continuous succession of its states and accords within the individual substance with the laws of nature that govern the whole world. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:263), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 3 epig | |
A reaction: An interesting link between the law-of-series within a substance, and the broader concept of laws outside it. |
7859 | Leibniz had an unusual commitment to the causal completeness of physics [Leibniz, by Papineau] |
Full Idea: Unlike most philosophers prior to the twentieth century, Leibniz was committed to the causal completeness of physics. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
A reaction: It has been suggested that Leibniz was actually, in private, a determinist (see Idea 7841), which would fit. Leibniz is enigmatic, but he may have proposed the closure of physics to glorify God, only to find that God was beginning to look irrelevant. |
15307 | Leibniz uses 'force' to mean both activity and potential [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: At this early period exegetical problems abound, since Leibniz uses 'force' both for actually acting forces and for potentials or powers. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], 9.II), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B | |
A reaction: I take Leibniz to be a key figure in the development of the Aristotelian approach, because he connected Aristotelian potential and essence with 'force' in the new physics. This is helpful in reading him correctly. |
3889 | God's existence is either necessary or impossible [Leibniz, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Leibniz said that the ontological argument does not prove God's existence, but only the God's existence is either necessary or impossible. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 13.5 |
7842 | Leibniz was closer than Spinoza to atheism [Leibniz, by Stewart,M] |
Full Idea: Leibniz sailed closer to the winds of unbelief than Spinoza did. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.16 | |
A reaction: This is an unusual view, but Stewart's view is that whereas Spinoza is always sincere in his writings, Leibniz is inclined to put a very conservative spin on his opinions. A key question for Leibniz is "Is God merely a monad?" |