9 ideas
| 7848 | Philosophy begins in the horror and absurdity of existence [Nietzsche, by Ansell Pearson] |
| Full Idea: For Nietzsche philosophy begins in horror - existence is something both horrible and absurd. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy [1871]) by Keith Ansell Pearson - How to Read Nietzsche Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: A striking contrast to Aristotle (Idea 549). Personally I think my philosophy begins with confusion. Not that I endorse a Wittgenteinian view, that we are just trying to cure ourselves of self-inflicted wounds. Life is very complex and we are bit simple. |
| 19419 | Not all of perception is accompanied by consciousness [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I do not think that the Cartesians have ever proved or can prove that every perception is accompanied by consciousness. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.195) | |
| A reaction: This idea is very important in Leibniz, because non-conscious or barely conscious thoughts and perceptions explain a huge amount about behaviour, reality and morality. |
| 19421 | Souls act as if there were no bodies, and bodies act as if there were no souls [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Everything takes place in souls as if there were no body, and everything takes place in bodies as if there were no souls. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.198) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I have ever encountered a modern thinker who accepts this view. Leibniz rejected Occasionalism, but his account depends entirely on the role of God, to set up the pre-established harmony. Why would God do that? |
| 20328 | A thing is only seen as art in an 'artworld', which has a theory and a history [Danto] |
| Full Idea: To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld. | |
| From: Arthur C. Danto (The Artworld [1964], II) | |
| A reaction: The editors of the volume call this a revolutionary remark, followed up by Danto and George Dickie with a social and institutional account of art. Danto's key example is Warhol's Brillo pads - art in a gallery, cleaning material in a shop. |
| 19420 | Death and generation are just transformations of an animal, augmented or diminished [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Death, like generation, is only the transformation of the same animal, which is sometimes augmented and sometimes diminished. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.195) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz has a very unusual view of death, since neither minds nor their bodies can ever be wholly destroyed. Death is a kind of shrinking. I suspect that he was wrong about that. |
| 19416 | Not all of matter is animated, any more than a pond full of living fish is animated [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It must not be said that each portion of matter is animated, just as we do not say that a pond full of fishes is an animated body, although a fish is. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.190) | |
| A reaction: This is a particularly clear picture of the role of monads in matter. Monads are attached to bodies, which are entirely inanimate, but monads suffuse matter and give it its properties, like particularly bubbly champagne. Cf Idea 19422. |
| 19422 | Every particle of matter contains organic bodies [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is no particle of matter which does not contain organic bodies. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.198) | |
| A reaction: Cf Idea 19416. There seems to be an interaction problem here (solved, presumably, by pre-established harmony). The organic bodies are there to explain the active behaviour of matter, but the related matter seems intrinsically inert. |
| 19418 | Mechanics shows that all motion originates in other motion, so there is a Prime Mover [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The maxim that there is no motion which has not its origin in another motion, according to the laws of mechanics, leads us again to the Prime Mover. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.194) | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's endorsement (uncredited) to Aquinas's First Way. It is hard to see how the laws of mechanics could have anything to say about the origin of movement. And doesn't the law say that the motions of God need a mover? |
| 19417 | All substances are in harmony, even though separate, so they must have one divine cause [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: My system of Pre-established Harmony furnishes a new proof of God's existence, since it is manifest that the agreement of so many substances, of which the one has no influence upon the other, could only come from a general cause on which they all depend. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principle of Life and Plastic Natures [1705], p.192) | |
| A reaction: Adjacent harmony seems self-explanatory, but remote harmony is interesting evidence for God. Hence modern quantum non-locality should make us all wonder whether there is a deeper explanation. |