Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Thomasius' and 'Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
13432 The essence of a circle is the equality of its radii [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The essence of a circle consists in the equality of all lines drawn from its centre to its circumference.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669)
     A reaction: Compare Locke in Idea 13431 and Spinoza in Idea 13073 on the essence of geometrical figures. A key question is whether the essence is in the simplest definition, or in a complex and wide-ranging account, e.g. including conic sections for circles.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
1556 By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / j. Unity of virtue
22456 Maybe virtues conflict with each other, if some virtue needs a vice for its achievement [Foot]
     Full Idea: Maybe so far from forming a unity ...., the virtues actually conflict with each other: that is, if someone has one of them he inevitably fails to have some other. ...Maybe he a man can only be good in one way be being bad in another.
     From: Philippa Foot (Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma [1983], p.57)
     A reaction: She suggests the self-loathing needed to rein in evil desires. She cites Nietzsche having a similar thought. Presumably the ideal virtuous person has no such conflicts, and the self-loathing undermines eudaimonia. Unity in theory but not in practice?
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
12696 Bodies are recreated in motion, and don't exist in intervening instants [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I have demonstrated that whatever moves is continuously created and that bodies are nothing at any time between the instants in motion.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669.04), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1
     A reaction: Leibniz is a little over-confident about what he has 'demonstrated', but I think (from this remark) that he would not have been displeased with quantum theory, and the notion of a 'quantum leap' and a 'Planck time'. A 'conatus' is a 'smallest motion'.