55 ideas
| 19648 | Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The central notion of philosophy since Kant is 'correlation' - that we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux's charge is that philosophy has thereby completely failed to grasp the scientific revolution, which has used mathematics to make objectivity possible. Quine and Putnam would be good examples of what he has in mind. |
| 19674 | The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The Copernican Revolution is not so much the decentring of observers in the solar system, but (by the mathematizing of nature) the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: In other words, I take it, the Copernican Revolution was the discovery of objectivity. That is a very nice addition to my History of Ideas collection. |
| 19657 | In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The major shift that has occurred in the conception of thought from Kant's time to ours is from the unknowability of the thing-in-itself to its unthinkability. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux is making the case that philosophy is alienating us more and more from the triumphant realism of the scientific revolution. He says thinking has split from being. He's right. Modern American pragmatists are the worst (not Peirce!). |
| 19675 | Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Ever since Kant, to think science as a philosopher has been to claim that science harbours a meaning other than the one delivered by science itself. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point is that science discovered objectivity (via the mathematising of nature), and Kant utterly rejected objectivity, by enmeshing the human mind in every possible scientific claim. This makes Meillassoux and I very cross. |
| 1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides would not agree with anything unless it seemed necessary, whereas his predecessors used to come up with unsubstantiated assertions. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A28) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.2- | |
| A reaction: from Eudemus |
| 19649 | Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Kant, objectivity is no longer defined with reference to the object in itself, but rather with reference to the possible universality of an objective statement. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux disapproves of this, as a betrayal by philosophers of the scientific revolution, which gave us true objectivity (e.g. about how the world was before humanity). |
| 19666 | If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No! |
| 19656 | Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature. |
| 19663 | We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: For contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that para-consistent logic might permit isolated contradictions (as true) within a system, but it is only contradiction across the system (inconsistencies) which make the system untenable. |
| 19664 | Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics were only developed in order to prevent computers, such as expert medical systems, from deducing anything whatsoever from contradictory data, because of the principle of 'ex falso quodlibet'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) |
| 19665 | Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics are only ever dealing with contradictions inherent in statements about the world, never with the real contradictions in the world. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: Thank goodness for that! I can accept that someone in a doorway is both in the room and not in the room, but not that they are existing in a real state of contradiction. I fear that a few daft people embrace the logic as confirming contradictory reality. |
| 19677 | What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must establish the thesis that what is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The truth of this thesis would permanently establish mathematics as the only possible language of science. Personally I have no idea how you could prove or assess such a thesis. It is a lovely speculation, though. 'The structure of the possible' (p,127) |
| 19659 | The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We maintain that it is absolutely necessary that every entity might not exist. ...The absolute is the absolute impossibility of a necessary being. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of his book. The usual candidates for necessary existence are God, and mathematical objects. I am inclined to agree with Meillassoux. |
| 448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: What necessity impelled Being, if it did spring from nothing, to be produced later or earlier? Thus it must be absolutely, or not at all. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Being has no coming-to-be and no destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. And it never was, nor will be, because it is now, a whole all together, one, continuous; for what creation of it will you look for? | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Being is not divisible, since it is all alike. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as nothing. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B06), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.86.27- |
| 445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: The other way of enquiry, that IT IS NOT, and IT is bound NOT TO BE, cannot be explored, for you could neither recognise nor express that which IS NOT. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28- |
| 21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides made some approach to the doctrine of Plato in identifying Being with Intellectual-Principle [Nous] while separating Real Being from the realm of sense. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: The point is that for Parmenides the One is the essence of Being, but for platonists there is something prior to and higher than Being. For Plato it is the Good; for Plotinus it is a revised (non-Being) concept of the One. |
| 19662 | It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that there be something rather than nothing because it is necessarily contingent that there is something rather than something else. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The great charm of metaphysics is the array of serious answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You'll need to read Meillassoux's book to understand this one. |
| 19654 | We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which 'to be is to be a correlate'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: He blames Kant for this pernicious idea, which has driven philosophy away from realist science, when it should be supporting and joining it. As a realist I agree, and find Meillassoux very illuminating on the subject. |
| 452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: All things that mortals have established, believing in their truth, are just a name: Becoming and Perishing, Being and Not-Being, and change of position, and alteration of bright colour. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides and Melissus were the first to appreciate that there must be unchanging entities, if recognition and knowledge are to exist. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A25) by Aristotle - On the Heavens 298b14 |
| 444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: The first way of enquiry is the one that IT IS, and it is not possible for IT NOT TO BE, which is the way of credibility, for it follows truth. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28- | |
| A reaction: also Proclus 'Timeus' |
| 450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Powerful necessity holds Being in the bonds of a limit, which constrains it round about, because divine law decrees that Being shall not be without boundary. For it is not lacking, but if it were spatially infinite, it would lack everything. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 19660 | Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: My term 'precariousness' designates a possibility of not-being which must eventually be realised. By contrast, absolute contingency designates a pure possibility; one which may never be realised. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: I thoroughly approve of this distinction, because I have often enountered the assumption that all contingency is precariousness, and I have never seen why that should be so. In Aquinas's Third Way, for example. The 6 on a die may never come up. |
| 19671 | The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of chance is only conceivable on condition that there are unalterable physical laws. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Laws might be contingent, even though they never alter. Chance in horse racing relies on the stability of whole institution of horse racing. |
| 451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: To think is the same as the thought that IT IS, for you will not find thinking without Being, on which it depends for its expression. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 19651 | Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'. |
| 1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A46) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 3.1 | |
| A reaction: cf Theaetetus pt 1 |
| 19647 | The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction. |
| 3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Reason alone will prove the truth of facts. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.3.3 |
| 19652 | How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: How is mathematical discourse able to describe a reality where humanity is absent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the prehistoric world. He takes this to be a key question about the laws of nature. We extrapolate mathematically from the experienced world, relying on the stability of the laws. Must they be necessary to be stable? No, it seems. |
| 19668 | Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Hume's question can be formulated as follows: can we demonstrate that the experimental science which is possible today will still be possible tomorrow? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Could there be deep universal changes going on in nature which science could never, even in principle, detect? |
| 19650 | The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux treats this as part of the Kantian Disaster, which made an accurate account of the scientific revolution impossible for philosophers. Kant's ego seems to have primarily an epistemological role. |
| 5049 | Intelligent pleasure is the perception of beauty, order and perfection [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: An intelligent being's pleasure is simply the perception of beauty, order and perfection. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §18) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz seems to have inherited this from the Greeks, especially Pythagoras and Plato. Buried in Leibniz's remark I see the Christian fear of physical pleasure. He should have got out more. Must an intelligent being always be intelligent? |
| 555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Those who assert that the universe is one and a single nature, when they try to give the causes of generation and destruction, miss out the cause of movement. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 988b |
| 5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Why does it follow from there being only one thing that it is unmoving, since, for example, water moves internally while remaining one? | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 186a16 | |
| A reaction: One suspects that Parmenides wasn't used to critical questions like this, and would have sharpened up his theory if it had been subjected to criticism. How big was the One? Maybe Aristotle is the real father of philosophy. |
| 1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
| Full Idea: Since the one is everywhere alike, then if it is divisible, it will be equally divisible everywhere….so let it be divided everywhere. It is obvious that nothing will remain and the whole will vanish, and so (if it is compound) it is composed of nothing. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.139.5- | |
| A reaction: he is quoting Porphyry |
| 20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Defenders of the One say that there could not be motion without a void, and that void is what does not exist, and that nothing that is not belongs to being. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325a26 | |
| A reaction: This is why motion is an illusion, a view also supported by the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. Aristotle goes on to give Democritus's response to this idea. Parmenides was contemplating 'void', before Democritus got to it. |
| 226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: The one is without any kind of motion. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Parmenides 139a |
| 1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Since he is forced to be guided by appearances, he assumes that the one exists from the viewpoint of reason, but that a plurality exists from the viewpoint of the sense, and so he posits two principles and causes - hot and cold. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A24) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 986b27- | |
| A reaction: A profound thought. Empiricists emphasies experience, and end up with fragmented reality. Reason explains experience, and in the process sees the world as unities (like objects), though a single unity is going too far. |
| 453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Since there is a spatial limit, it is complete on every side, like the mass of a well-rounded sphere, equally balanced from its centre in every direction; for it is not bound to be at all either greater or less in this direction or that. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He taught that there were two elements, fire and earth; and that one of them occupies the place of the maker, the other that of the matter. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Pa.2 |
| 19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
| 19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
| 5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: For people to ignore the evidence of their senses and look for an explanation for everything being at rest is feeble-minded. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 253a32 | |
| A reaction: Not exactly an argument, but an interestingly robust assertion of commonsense against dodgy arguments. Aristotle is not exactly an empiricist, but he is on that side of the fence. |
| 13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers thought what is must be one and immovable. The void, they say, is not: but unless there is a void what is cannot be moved, nor can it be many, since there is nothing to keep things apart. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325a06 | |
| A reaction: Somehow this doesn't seem very persuasive any more! I suppose we would distinguish various degrees of void, and assert the existence of sufficient void to allow movement and separation. We must surely agree that total nothingness doesn't exist. |
| 22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: What need would have aroused it later or sooner, starting from nothing to come into being? | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 02 'Everything' | |
| A reaction: [Barnes 1982:178] This remains an excellent question. The last I heard was a 'quantum fluctuation', but that seems to be an event, which therefore needs time. |
| 1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He was the first person who asserted that the earth was of a spherical form. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Pa.2 |
| 1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He appears to have been the first to discover that Hesperus and Lucifer were the same star. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Pa.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the famous example used by Frege to discuss reference and meaning. |
| 5048 | Perfection is simply quantity of reality [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Perfection is simply quantity of reality. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §11) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim, but totally beyond my personal comprehension. I presume he inherited 'quantity of reality' from Plato, e.g. as you move up the Line from shadows to Forms you increase the degree of reality. I see 'real' as all-or-nothing. |
| 19653 | The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Descartes conceives of God as existing necessarily, whether I exist to think of him or not, Descartes assures me of a possible access to an absolute reality - a Great Outdoors that is not a correlate of my thought. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the ontological argument should be seen as part of the scientific revolution, and not an anomaly within it. Interesting. |
| 19658 | Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Once the absolute has become unthinkable, even atheism, which also targets God's inexistence in the manner of an absolute, is reduced to a mere belief, and hence to a religion, albeit of the nihilist kind. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim. Rather hard to agree or disagree, though the idea that atheism must qualify as a religion seems odd. If it is unqualified it does have the grand quality of a religion, but if it is fallibilist it just seems like an attitude. |
| 5050 | Evil serves a greater good, and pain is necessary for higher pleasure [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Evils themselves serve a greater good, and the fact that pains are found in minds is necessary if they are to reach greater pleasures. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (A Résumé of Metaphysics [1697], §23) | |
| A reaction: How much pain is needed to qualify for the 'greater pleasures'? Some people receive an awful lot. I am not sure exactly how an evil can 'serve' a greater good. Is he recommending evil? |