Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Queries to the 'Opticks'' and 'The Iliad or the Poem of Force'

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4 ideas

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

16764	The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
	Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted.
	From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
	A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763.

24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 1. Social Power

23812	Force is what turns man into a thing, and ultimately into a corpse [Weil]
	Full Idea: To define 'force' - it is that x that turns anybody who is subjected to it into a thing. Exercised to the limit, it turns man into a thing in the most literal sense: it makes a corpse out of him.
	From: Simone Weil (The Iliad or the Poem of Force [1940], p.183)
	A reaction: She celebrates The Iliad as the great examination of force in human affairs. I have felt that sense of reduction to a thing whenever anyone above me in the hierarchy has arbitrarily exerted their power over me.

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 1. Basis of justice

23813	Only people who understand force, and don't respect it, are capable of justice [Weil]
	Full Idea: Only he who has measured the dominion of force, and knows how not to respect it, is capable of love and justice.
	From: Simone Weil (The Iliad or the Poem of Force [1940], p.212)
	A reaction: There are, of course, occasions when we are grateful to people who exercise appropriate force on our behalf. I think she was concerned with what is inappropriate.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature

16746	Principles of things are not hidden features of forms, but the laws by which they were formed [Newton]
	Full Idea: The (active) principles I consider not as occult qualities, supposed to result from the specific forms of things, but as general laws of nature, by which the things themselves are formed.
	From: Isaac Newton (Queries to the 'Opticks' [1721], q 31), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
	A reaction: This is the external, 'imposed' view of laws (with the matter passive) at its most persuasive. If laws arise out the stuff (as I prefer to think), what principles went into the formulation of the stuff?