Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians', 'Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics' and 'Habermas'

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11 ideas

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function

13195	To explain a house we must describe its use, as well as its parts [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: A house would be badly explained if we were to describe only the arrangement of its parts, but not its use.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.255)
	A reaction: This must partly fall under pragmatics (i.e. what the enquirer is interested in). But function plays a genuine role in artefacts, and also in evolved biological organs.

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 10. Conatus/Striving

13193	Active force is not just potential for action, since it involves a real effort or striving [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Active force should not be thought of as the simple and common potential [potentia] or receptivity to action of the schools. Rather, active force involves an effort [conatus] or striving [tendentia] toward action.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.252)
	A reaction: This is why Leibniz is lured into making his active forces more and more animistic, till they end up like proto-minds (though never, remember, conscious and willing minds).

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics

15675	We don't condemn people for being bad at reasoning [Finlayson]
	Full Idea: We do not morally disapprove of people who are incompetent reasoners.
	From: James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.6:83)
	A reaction: Well, we don't morally disapprove simply of their lack of reasoning ability, but we may morally disapprove of their actions, which have arisen entirely from the disability.

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability

15674	One can universalise good advice, but that doesn't make it an obligation [Finlayson]
	Full Idea: 'Early to bed and early to rise' is a universalizable maxim, but, though it might be good advice, there is obviously no such obligation.
	From: James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.6:83)
	A reaction: I take it that Kant's rule won't distinguish moral guidance from prudential guidance. Unfair, I think. I may be a lark, but when I universalise this maxim I see that it can't be willed as a universal rule, because we should tolerate the owls.

24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 5. Culture

15662	The 'culture industry' is an advertisement for the way things are [Finlayson]
	Full Idea: Critical theory said that culture unwittingly played the role of an advertisement for the way things are. Horkheimer and Adorno referred to this phenomenon as the 'culture industry'.
	From: James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.1:04)
	A reaction: An interesting perspective. However, absolutely everything is an advertisement for what it offers. I think this is especially true of moral (and immoral) actions.

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

13194	God's laws would be meaningless without internal powers for following them [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: To say that, in creation, God gave bodies a law for acting means nothing, unless, at the same time, he gave them something by means of which it could happen that the law is followed.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.253)
	A reaction: This is the beginning of the modern rebellion against the medieval view of laws as imposed from outside on passive matter. Unfortunately for Leibniz, once you have postulated active internal powers, the external laws become redundant.

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / c. Forces

13196	All qualities of bodies reduce to forces [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: All qualities of bodies .....are in the end reduced [revoco] to forces.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.256)
	A reaction: The dots conceal a long qualification, but he is essentially standing by this simple remark. If you substitute the word 'powers' for 'forces', I think that is just about right.

13192	Power is passive force, which is mass, and active force, which is entelechy or form [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The dynamicon or power [potentia] in bodies is twofold, passive and active. Passive force [vis] constitutes matter or mass [massa], and active force constitutes entelechy or form.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.252)
	A reaction: This is explicitly equating the innate force understood in physics with Aristotelian form. The passive force is to explain the resistance of bodies. I like the equation of force with power. He says the entelechy is 'analogous' to a soul.

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields

21731	Fields can be 'scalar', or 'vector', or 'tensor', or 'spinor' [Baggott]
	Full Idea: Fields can be 'scalar', with no particular direction (pointing, but not pushing or pulling); or 'vector', with a direction (like magnetism, or Newtonian gravity); or 'tensor' (needing further parameters); or 'spinor' (depending on spin orientation).
	From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 2 'Quantum')
	A reaction: [compressed] So the question is, why do they differ? What is it in the nature of each field the result in a distinctive directional feature?

21730	A 'field' is a property with a magnitude, distributed across all of space and time [Baggott]
	Full Idea: A 'field' is defined in terms of the magnitude of some physical property distributed over every point in time and space.
	From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 2 'Quantum')
	A reaction: If it involves a 'property', normal usage entails that there is some entity which possesses the property. So what's the entity? Eh? Eh? You don't know! Disappointed...

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / b. Standard model

21732	The current standard model requires 61 particles [Baggott]
	Full Idea: The current model requires 61 particles: three generations of two leptons and two flavours of quark, in three different colours (making 24); the anti-particles of all of these (48); 12 force particles (photon, W1, Z0, 8 gluons), and a Higgs boson.
	From: Jim Baggott (Farewell to Reality: fairytale physics [2013], 6 n)