Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Aristotle and Descartes on Matter', 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic' and 'The Vocation of Man'

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52 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / c. Eighteenth century philosophy
My dogmatic slumber was first interrupted by David Hume [Kant]
     Full Idea: I freely admit that remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 4:260), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 5.2
     A reaction: A famous declaration. He realised that he had the answer the many scepticisms of Hume, and accept his emphasis on the need for experience.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
Metaphysics is generating a priori knowledge by intuition and concepts, leading to the synthetic [Kant]
     Full Idea: The generation of knowledge a priori, both according to intuition and according to concepts, and finally the generation of synthetic propositions a priori in philosophical knowledge, constitutes the essential content of metaphysics.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 274)
     A reaction: By 'concepts' he implies mere analytic thought, so 'intuition' is where the exciting bit is, and that is rather vague.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
The need to act produces consciousness, and practical reason is the root of all reason [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Consciousness of the real world proceeds from the need to act, not the other way around. …Practical reason is the root of all reason.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
     A reaction: Strongly agree with the last part. In my conceptual scheme 'sensible' behaviour (e.g. of animals) precedes, in every way, rational behaviour. Sensible attitudes to quantity and magnitude precede mathematical logic. Minds exist for navigation.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Sufficient reason makes the transition from the particular to the general [Fichte]
     Full Idea: The principle of sufficient reason is the point of transition from the particular, which is itself, to the general, which is outside it.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems worth passing on. Personally I would say that we have a knack of generalising, triggered when we spot patterns.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 1. Mathematics
Mathematics cannot proceed just by the analysis of concepts [Kant]
     Full Idea: Mathematics cannot proceed analytically, namely by analysis of concepts, but only synthetically.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284)
     A reaction: I'm with Kant insofar as I take mathematics to be about the world, no matter how rarefied and 'abstract' it may become.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
Geometry is not analytic, because a line's being 'straight' is a quality [Kant]
     Full Idea: No principle of pure geometry is analytic. That the straight line beween two points is the shortest is a synthetic proposition. For my concept of straight contains nothing of quantity but only of quality.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 269)
     A reaction: I'm not sure what his authority is for calling straightness a quality rather than a quantity, given that it can be expressed quantitatively. It is a very nice example for focusing our questions about the nature of geometry. I can't decide.
Geometry rests on our intuition of space [Kant]
     Full Idea: Geometry is grounded on the pure intuition of space.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284)
     A reaction: I have the impression that recent thinkers are coming round to this idea, having attempted purely algebraic or logical accounts of geometry.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / a. Numbers
Numbers are formed by addition of units in time [Kant]
     Full Idea: Arithmetic forms its own concepts of numbers by successive addition of units in time.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284)
     A reaction: It is hard to imagine any modern philosopher of mathematics embracing this idea. It sounds as if Kant thinks counting is the foundation of arithmetic, which I quite like.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / f. Arithmetic
7+5 = 12 is not analytic, because no analysis of 7+5 will reveal the concept of 12 [Kant]
     Full Idea: The concept of twelve is in no way already thought by merely thinking the unification of seven and five, and though I analyse my concept of such a possible sum as long as I please, I shall never find twelve in it.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 269)
     A reaction: It might be more plausible to claim that an analysis of 12 would reveal the concept of 7+5. Doesn't the concept of two collections of objects contain the concept of their combined cardinality?
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 2. Intuition of Mathematics
Mathematics can only start from an a priori intuition which is not empirical but pure [Kant]
     Full Idea: We find that all mathematical knowledge has this peculiarity, that it must first exhibit its concept in intuition, and do so a priori, in an intuition that is not empirical but pure.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 281)
     A reaction: Later thinkers had grave doubts about this Kantian 'intuition', even if they though maths was known a priori. Personally I am increasing fan of rational intuition, even if I am not sure how to discern whether it is rational on any occasion.
All necessary mathematical judgements are based on intuitions of space and time [Kant]
     Full Idea: Space and time are the two intuitions on which pure mathematics grounds all its cognitions and judgements that present themselves as at once apodictic and necessary.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284)
     A reaction: This unlikely proposal seems to be based on the idea that mathematics must arise from the basic categories of our intuition, and these two are the best candidates he can find. I would say that high-level generality is the basis of mathematics.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / c. Against mathematical empiricism
Mathematics cannot be empirical because it is necessary, and that has to be a priori [Kant]
     Full Idea: Mathematical propositions are always judgements a priori, and not empirical, because they carry with them necessity, which cannot be taken from experience.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 268)
     A reaction: Presumably there are necessities in the physical world, and we might discern them by generalising about that world, so that mathematics is (by a tortuous abstract route) a posteriori necessary? Just a thought…
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
Each object has a precise number of properties, each to a precise degree [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Each object has a definite number of properties, no more, no less. …Each of these objects possesses each of these properties to a definite degree.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: Quine flatly disagrees with this. Fichte offers no grounds for his claim. On the whole I think of properties as psychologically abstracted by us from holistic objects, so there is plenty of room for error. The underlying powers are real.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force [Fichte]
     Full Idea: The principle of activity, of generation and becoming in and for itself, is purely in that force itself and not in anything outside it…; the force is not driven or set in motion, it sets itself in motion.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: A good account of primitive powers, as self-motivating forces. I can't think what else could be fundamental to nature. This whole passage of Fichte expounds a powers ontology.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique
The substance, once the predicates are removed, remains unknown to us [Kant]
     Full Idea: It has long since been noticed that in all substances the subject proper, namely what is left over after all the accidents (as predicates) have been taken away and hence the 'substantial' itself, is unknown to us.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 333)
     A reaction: This is the terminus of the process of abstraction (though Wiggins says such removal of predicates is a myth). Kant is facing the problem of the bare substratum, or haecceity.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
'Transcendental' concerns how we know, rather than what we know [Kant]
     Full Idea: The word 'transcendental' signifies not a relation of our cognition to things, but only to the faculty of cognition.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 4:293), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 5.4
     A reaction: This is the annoying abduction of a word which is very useful in metaphysical contexts.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
I admit there are bodies outside us [Kant]
     Full Idea: I do indeed admit that there are bodies outside us.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 289 n.II)
     A reaction: This is the end of a passage in which Kant very explicitly denies being an idealist. Of course, he says we can only know the representations of things, and not how they are in themselves.
'Transcendental' is not beyond experience, but a prerequisite of experience [Kant]
     Full Idea: The word 'transcendental' does not mean something that goes beyond all experience, but something which, though it precedes (a priori) all experience, is destined only to make knowledge by experience possible.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 373 n)
     A reaction: One of two explanations by Kant of 'transcendental', picked out by Sebastian Gardner. I think the word 'prerequisite' covers the idea nicely, using a normal English word. Or am I missing something?
I am myself, but not the external object; so I only sense myself, and not the object [Fichte]
     Full Idea: I sense in myself, not in the object, for I am myself and not the object; therefore I sense only myself and my condition, and not the condition of the object.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
     A reaction: I'm not clear why anyone would have total confidence in internal experience and almost no confidence in experience of externals. In daily life I am equally confident about both. In philosophical mode I make equally cautious judgements about both.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Self-consciousness is the basis of knowledge, and knowing something is knowing myself [Fichte]
     Full Idea: The immediate consciousness of myself is the condition of all other consciousness; and I know a thing only in so far as I know that I know it; no element can enter into the latter cognition which is not contained in the former.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.37), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.2
     A reaction: This strikes me as false, and a lot of intellectual contortion would be needed to believe it. Is knowing this pen is in front of me a case of knowing that I have knowledge of this pen, or is it just knowledge of this pen? [cf Kant 1781:A129]
There is nothing to say about anything which is outside my consciousness [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Of any connection beyond the limits of my consciousness I cannot speak. ...I cannot proceed a hair's breadth beyond this consciousness, any more than I can spring out of myself.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.74), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.3
     A reaction: I can't see that this is any different from the idealism of Berkeley, although they get there from different starting points. Idealist seem unable to even begin explaining consciousness.
Awareness of reality comes from the free activity of consciousness [Fichte]
     Full Idea: It is the necessary faith in our freedom of power, in our own real activity, and in the definite laws of human action, which lies at the root of all our consciousness of a reality external to ourselves.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.98), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.4
     A reaction: I'd love to know what the 'laws of human action' are. Is it what Hume was trying to do? Moore says there is an 'element of self-creation' in Fichte's account of the source of reality. This is Descartes' dream argument biting back.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 5. A Priori Synthetic
A priori synthetic knowledge is only of appearances, not of things in themselves [Kant]
     Full Idea: Through intuition we can only know objects as they appear to us (to our senses), not as they may be in themselves; and this presupposition is absolutely necessary if synthetic propositions a priori are to be granted as possible.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283)
     A reaction: This idea is basic to understanding Kant, and especially his claim that arithmetic is a priori synthetic.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts
A priori intuitions can only concern the objects of our senses [Kant]
     Full Idea: Intuitions which are possible a priori can never concern any other things than objects of our senses.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283)
     A reaction: Given the Kantian idea that what is known a priori will also be necessary, we might have had great hopes for big-time metaphysics, but this idea cuts it down to size. Personally, I don't think we are totally imprisoned in the phenomena.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 10. A Priori as Subjective
A priori intuition of objects is only possible by containing the form of my sensibility [Kant]
     Full Idea: The only way for my intuition to precede the reality of the object and take place as knowledge a priori is if it contains nothing else than the form of sensibility which in me as subject precedes all real impressions through which I'm affected by objects.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283)
     A reaction: This may be the single most famous idea in Kant. I'm not really a Kantian, but this is a powerful idea, the culmination of Descartes' proposal to start philosophy by looking at ourselves. No subsequent thinking can ignore the idea.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
I can make no sense of the red experience being similar to the quality in the object [Kant]
     Full Idea: I can make little sense of the assertion that the sensation of red is similar to the property of the vermilion [cinnabar] which excites this sensation in me.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 290)
     A reaction: A sensible remark. In Kant's case it is probably a part of his scepticism that his intuitions reveal anything directly about reality. Locke seems to have thought (reasonably enough) that the experience contains some sort of valid information.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
I count the primary features of things (as well as the secondary ones) as mere appearances [Kant]
     Full Idea: I also count as mere appearances, in addition to [heat, colour, taste], the remaining qualities of bodies which are called primariae, extension, place, and space in general, with all that depends on it (impenetrability or materiality, shape etc.).
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 289 n.II)
     A reaction: He sides with Berkeley and Hume against Locke and Boyle. He denies being an idealist (Idea 16923), so it seems to me that Kant might be described as a 'phenomenalist'.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
I can't intuit a present thing in itself, because the properties can't enter my representations [Kant]
     Full Idea: It seems inconceivable how the intuition of a thing that is present should make me know it as it is in itself, for its properties cannot migrate into my faculty of representation.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282)
     A reaction: One might compare this with Locke's distinction of primary and secondary, where the primary properties seem to 'migrate into my faculty of representation', but the secondary ones fail to do so. I think I prefer Locke. This idea threatens idealism.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
I immediately know myself, and anything beyond that is an inference [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Immediately I know only of myself. What I am able to know beyond that I am only able to know through inference.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: A direct descendant of the Cartesian Cogito, I assume. Personally, if I bang my head on a beam I take the beam to be a full paid-up member of reality. Is it not possible that he also knows himself through inference? Do animals infer reality?
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism
Appearance gives truth, as long as it is only used within experience [Kant]
     Full Idea: Appearance brings forth truth so long as it is used in experience, but as soon as it goes beyond the boundary of experience and becomes transcendent, it brings forth nothing but illusion.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 292 n.III)
     A reaction: This is the nearest I have found to Kant declaring for empiricism. It sounds something like direct realism, if experience itself can bring forth truth.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Intuition is a representation that depends on the presence of the object [Kant]
     Full Idea: Intuition is a representation, such as would depend on the presence of the object.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282)
     A reaction: This is a distinctively Kantian view of intuition, which arises through particulars, rather than the direct apprehension of generalities.
Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Faith is no knowledge, but a decision of the will to recognise the validity of knowledge.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
     A reaction: What matters is the grounds for the decision. Mad conspiracy theories are decisions of the will which are false. Legitimate faith is an intuition of coherence which cannot be fully articulated.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / b. Basic beliefs
Knowledge can't be its own foundation; there has to be regress of higher and higher authorities [Fichte]
     Full Idea: No knowledge can be its own foundation and proof. Every knowledge presupposes something still higher as its foundation, and this ascent has no end.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
     A reaction: A metaphor that's hard to visualise! He must have in mind a priori as well as empirical knowledge. The 'higher' levels don't seem to be God, but some region of absolute rationality, to which free minds have access. I think.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte]
     Full Idea: My immediate consciousness is composed of two constituent parts, the consciousness of my passivity, the sensation; and the consciousness of my activity, in the production of an object according to the principle of causality.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
     A reaction: Kind of obvious, but unusual to make this sharp binary division. Modern neuroscience strongly militates against any and every simple binary division of brain activities.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 7. Blindsight
We can't know by sight or hearing without realising that we are doing so [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Q. Could you not perhaps know an object through sight or hearing without knowing that you are seeing or hearing? A. Not at all.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
     A reaction: A nice statement of the traditional view which seemed to be demolished by the discovery of blindsight. In the light of modern brain research, the views of the mind found in past philosophers mostly seem very naïve.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
Consciousness of external things is always accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of self [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Q. So that constantly and under all circumstances my consciousness of things outside of me is accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of myself? A. Quite so.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
     A reaction: He should be more cautious about asserting the existence of something 'unnoticed'. The Earth's core is unnoticed by me, but there is plenty of evidence for it. Not so sure about unnoticed self. Still, I think central control of the mind is indispensable.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Forming purposes is absolutely free, and produces something from nothing [Fichte]
     Full Idea: My thinking and originating of a purpose is in its nature absolutely free and brings forth something from nothing.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
     A reaction: Modern fans of free will are more equivocal in their assertions, and would be uncomfortable bluntly claiming to 'get something from nothing'. But that's what free will is! Embrace it, or run for your life.
The capacity for freedom is above the laws of nature, with its own power of purpose and will [Fichte]
     Full Idea: This capacity [for freedom], once it exists, is in the servitude of a power which is higher than nature and quite free of its laws, the power of purposes, and the will.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: You would think this could only refer to God, but he in fact is referring to the power of human free will. The clearest statement I have found of the weird human exceptionalism implied by a strong commitment to free will.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions [Fichte]
     Full Idea: I want to be independent - not to be in and through another but to be something for myself: and as such I want myself to be the fundamental cause of all my determinations.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: I think this sums up the absurdity of the concept of free will. The only reason he gives for his passionate belief in free will is that he desperately wants some imagined 'fundamental cause' for his action, and he wants full control of that chimera.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism
Nature contains a fundamental force of thought [Fichte]
     Full Idea: There is an original force of thought in nature just as there is an original formative force.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: I think this idea is false, but it helps to understand Fichte.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / a. Origin of concepts
Some concepts can be made a priori, which are general thoughts of objects, like quantity or cause [Kant]
     Full Idea: Concepts are of such a nature that we can make some of them ourselves a priori, without standing in any immediate relation to the object; namely concepts that contain the thought of an object in general, such as quantity or cause.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282)
     A reaction: 'Quantity' seems to be the scholastic idea, of something having a magnitude (a big pebble, not six pebbles).
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions
Analytic judgements say clearly what was in the concept of the subject [Kant]
     Full Idea: Analytic judgements say nothing in the predicate that was not already thought in the concept of the subject, though not so clearly and with the same consciousness. If I say all bodies are extended, I have not amplified my concept of body in the least.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 266)
     A reaction: If I say all bodies are made of atoms, have I extended my concept of 'body'? It would come as a sensational revelation for Aristotle, but it now seems analytic.
Analytic judgement rests on contradiction, since the predicate cannot be denied of the subject [Kant]
     Full Idea: Analytic judgements rest wholly on the principle of contradiction, …because the predicate cannot be denied of the subject without contradiction.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 267)
     A reaction: So if I say 'gold has atomic number 79', that is a (Kantian) analytic statement? This is the view of sceptics about Kripke's a posteriori necessity. …a few lines later Kant gives 'gold is a yellow metal' as an example.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
The will is awareness of one of our inner natural forces [Fichte]
     Full Idea: To will is to be immediately conscious of the activity of one of our inner natural forces.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: A more Nietzschean view would be that to will is to be conscious of the victor among our inner natural drives. It can't just be awareness of one force, because the will feels conflicts.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
I cannot change the nature which has been determined for me [Fichte]
     Full Idea: I cannot will the intention of making myself something other than what I am determined to be by nature, for I don't make myself at all but nature makes me and whatever I become.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: I take this to be a lot more accurate than Sartre's claim that we can re-make ourselves, but Fichte doesn't seem quite right. Don't I get any credit at all if I give up smoking, or train myself to treat someone more sympathetically?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / g. Will to power
The self is, apart from outward behaviour, a drive in your nature [Fichte]
     Full Idea: This 'you' for which you show such a lively interest is, so far as it is not overt behaviour, at least a drive in your own peculiar nature.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: I assume this use of 'drive' is the origin of Nietzsche's picture of such things, focused on the basic will to power. I like Fichte's emphasis on active forces as the basis of nature.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
If life lacks love it becomes destruction [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Only in love is there life; without it there is death and annihilation.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: He gives not context of justification for this sudden claim. Watching from a melancholy distance the current 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, I take this idea to be a profound truth. If you let go of love, you float away down a dark stream.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
Freedom means making yourself become true to your essential nature [Fichte]
     Full Idea: I want to be free means: I myself want to make myself be whatever I will be. I would therefore …already have to be, in a certain sense, what I am to become, so that I could make myself be it.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: This is much closer to the existenial picture of the malleable self, which Fichte arrives out once he commits to his desperate desire to have free will. [Not sure if my gist captures what he says].
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything [Fichte]
     Full Idea: Nature is an interconnected whole; …you could shift no grain of sand from its spot without thereby, perhaps invisibly to your eyes, changing something in all parts of the immeasurable whole.
     From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
     A reaction: Sounds like idealist daydreaming, but might it actually be true with respect to gravity?
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / b. Prime matter
Prime matter is nothing when it is at rest [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Primary matter is nothing if considered at rest.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Aristotle and Descartes on Matter [1671], p.90)
     A reaction: This goes with Leibniz's Idea 13393, that activity is the hallmark of existence. No one seems to have been able to make good sense of prime matter, and it plays little role in Aristotle's writings.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 2. Space
Space must have three dimensions, because only three lines can meet at right angles [Kant]
     Full Idea: That complete space …has three dimensions, and that space in general cannot have more, is built on the proposition that not more than three lines can intersect at right angles in a point.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 285)
     A reaction: Modern geometry seems to move, via the algebra, to more than three dimensions, and then battles for an intuition of how that can be. I don't know how they would respond to Kant's challenge here.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / a. Absolute time
If all empirical sensation of bodies is removed, space and time are still left [Kant]
     Full Idea: If everything empirical, namely what belongs to sensation, is taken away from the empirical intuition of bodies and their changes (motion), space and time are still left.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 284)
     A reaction: This is an exercise in psychological abstraction, which doesn't sound like good evidence, though it is an interesting claim. Physicists want to hijack this debate, but I like Kant's idea.