Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Lectures on the History of Philosophy', 'De arcanus motus' and 'works'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

21757	Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history [Hegel]
	Full Idea: Philosophy is the supreme blossom - the concept - of the entire shape of history, the consciousness and the spiritual essence of the whole situation, the spirit of the age as the spirit present and aware of itself in thought.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
	A reaction: This sees philosophy as intrinsically historical, which is a founding idea for 'continental' philosophy. Analysis is tied to science, in which the history of the subject is seen as irrelevant to its truth. Does this mean we can't go back to Aristotle?

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 4. Linguistic Structuralism

23123	Basic to human culture are binary oppositions, such as eating raw or cooked [Levi-Strauss, by Green,TH]
	Full Idea: Lévi-Strauss made canonic to French structuralism the idea that human culture could be understood through a series of binary oppositionsn - the difference between what could be eaten raw and what cooked being one of the most fundamental.
	From: report of Claude Lévi-Strauss (works [1950]) by T.H. Green - Prolegomena to Ethics 1
	A reaction: My guess is that such oppositions can often be illuminating, but will always be eventually judged as too simplistic.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers

12733	Because of the definitions of cause, effect and power, cause and effect have the same power [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The primary mechanical axiom is that the whole cause and the entire effect have the same power [potentia]. ..This depends on the definition of cause, effect and power.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De arcanus motus [1676], 203), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6
	A reaction: This is a useful reminder that if one is going to build a metaphysics on powers (which I intend to do), then the conservation laws in physics are highly relevant.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity

12734	Every necessary proposition is demonstrable to someone who understands [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Every necessary proposition is demonstrable, at least by someone who understands it.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De arcanus motus [1676], 203), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6
	A reaction: This kind of optimism leads to the crisis of the Hilbert Programme in the 1930s. Gödel seems to have conclusively proved that Leibniz was wrong. What would Leibniz have made of Gödel?