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15957
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Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
Essential definitions are such as are taken from the essential differences of things, which constitute them in such a sort of natural bodies, and discriminate them from all those of any other sort.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.41?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
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A reaction:
I don't think this goes as far as the aim Aristotle had in definitions, which was more than merely to 'discriminate' each thing. A full definition explains the thing as well.
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15965
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Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
Boyle attacks an idea of powers, held by some modern schoolmen and chemists, that makes powers occult.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3
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A reaction:
[This involves Boyle's famous example of a key having the power to turn a lock] On p.86 Alexander says the 'occult' belief is in affinities, antipathies, attractions and repulsions. How did Boyle explain magnetism?
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16034
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Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
I understand the word 'form' to mean, not a real substance distinct from matter, but only the matter itself of a natural body, with its peculiar manner of existence [corpuscular structure], which may be called its 'essential modification' or 'stamp'.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.324), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3
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A reaction:
I don't think Aristotle ever thought that a form was separate from its matter, let alone qualifying as a substance. On the whole, Boyle attacks scholastic philosophy, rather than Aristotle.
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15953
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To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
If it be demanded why rhubarb purges choler, snow dazzles the eyes rather than grass etc., that these effects are performed by substantial forms of the respective bodies is at best but to tell me what is the agent, not how the effect is wrought.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.47?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2
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A reaction:
This is the problem of the 'virtus dormitiva' of opium (which at least tells you it was the opium what done it). I take Aristotle to have aspired to a lot more than this. He wanted a full definition, which would contain lots of information about the form.
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15962
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Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
Perhaps Boyle's most important technical terms is 'texture'. ...It must not be confused with the way we feel the texture of a surface like sandpaper or velvet; it is rather a structure of unobservable particles and so it is not directly observable.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.2
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A reaction:
This is the basis for Alexander's reassessment of what Boyle and Locke meant by a 'secondary quality', which, he says, is a physical feature of objects, not a mental experience.
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8954
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Geometrical circles cannot identify a circular paint patch, presumably because they lack something [Szabó]
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Full Idea:
The vocabulary of geometry is sufficient to identify the circle, but could not be used to identify any circular paint patch. The reason must be that the circle lacks certain properties that can distinguish paint patches from one another.
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From:
Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2)
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A reaction:
I take this to be support for the traditional view, that abstractions are created by omitting some of the properties of physical objects. I take them to be fictional creations, reified by language, and not actual hidden entities that have been observed.
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8955
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Abstractions are imperceptible, non-causal, and non-spatiotemporal (the third explaining the others) [Szabó]
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Full Idea:
In current discussions, abstract entities are usually distinguished as 1) in principle imperceptible, 2) incapable of causal interaction, 3) not located in space-time. The first is often explained by the second, which is in turn explained by the third.
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From:
Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2)
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A reaction:
Szabó concludes by offering 3 as the sole criterion of abstraction. As Lewis points out, the Way of Negation for defining abstracta doesn't tell us very much. Courage may be non-spatiotemporal, but what about Alexander the Great's courage?
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15952
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The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
In Boyle's corpuscular philosophy, all material substances are composed of minute particles or corpuscles, with ordinary properties such as shape, size and motion. There was no need for occult relations between them, such as sympathies, or even forces.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.1
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