5 ideas
| 13120 | Chisholm divides things into contingent and necessary, and then individuals, states and non-states [Chisholm, by Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Chisholm's Ontological Categories: ENTIA - {Contingent - [Individual - (Boundaries)(Substances)] [States - (Events)]} {Necessary - [States] [Non-States - (Attributes)(Substance)]} | |
| From: report of Roderick Chisholm (A Realistic Theory of Categories [1996], p.3) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §01 | |
| A reaction: [I am attempting a textual representation of a tree diagram! The bracket-styles indicate the levels.] |
| 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? |
| 10370 | Causal relata are individuated by coarse spacetime regions [Quine, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Quine's view is that causal relata are individuated by spacetime regions, which is even less fine-grained than Davidson's account of events.... He says fine-grained events are poorly individuated and unfamiliar. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Events and Reification [1985]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2 | |
| A reaction: [Schaffer cites Davidson 1985 as accepting this view] This is a nice suggestion, if we are looking for a naturalistic account of causal relata. It makes a minimum ontological commitment (a Quine trait), and I would supplement it with active 'powers'. |
| 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. |
| 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? |