19347
|
Substance needs independence, unity, and stability (for individuation); also it is a subject, for predicates [Perkins]
|
|
Full Idea:
For individuation, substance needs three properties: independence, to separate it from other things; unity, to call it one thing, rather than an aggregate; and permanence or stability over time. Its other role is as subject for predicates.
|
|
From:
Franklin Perkins (Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed [2007], 3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Perkins is describing the Aristotelian view, which is taken up by Leibniz. 'Substance' is not a controversial idea, if we see that it only means that the world is full of 'things'. It is an unusual philosopher wholly totally denies that.
|
5121
|
Basing ethics on flourishing makes it consequentialist, as actions are judged by contributing to it [Harman]
|
|
Full Idea:
Basing ethics on human flourishing tends towards utilitarianism or consequentialism; actions, character traits, laws, and so on are to be assessed with reference to their contributions to human flourishing.
|
|
From:
Gilbert Harman (Human Flourishing, Ethics and Liberty [1983], 9.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This raises the question of whether only virtue can contribute to flourishing, or whether a bit of vice might be helpful. This problem presumably pushed the Stoics to say that virtue itself is the good, rather than the resulting flourishing.
|
12696
|
Bodies are recreated in motion, and don't exist in intervening instants [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
I have demonstrated that whatever moves is continuously created and that bodies are nothing at any time between the instants in motion.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669.04), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1
|
|
A reaction:
Leibniz is a little over-confident about what he has 'demonstrated', but I think (from this remark) that he would not have been displeased with quantum theory, and the notion of a 'quantum leap' and a 'Planck time'. A 'conatus' is a 'smallest motion'.
|