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12739
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If we are dreaming, it is sufficient that the events are coherent, and obey laws [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Skeptics may doubt the truth of things, and if it pleases them to call the things that occur to us dreams, it suffices for these dreams to be in agreement with each other, and to obey certain laws.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On Perceptions [1680], A6.4.1398), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
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A reaction:
Leibniz flirted a great deal with phenomenalism throughout the middle of his career, as charted by Garber. Descartes made similar points. It is really only Berkeley who took this idea seriously.
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16566
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Poetry is more philosophic than history, as it concerns universals, not particulars [Aristotle]
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Full Idea:
Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
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From:
Aristotle (The Poetics [c.347 BCE], 1451b05)
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A reaction:
Hm. Characters in great novels achieve universality by being representated very particularly. Great depth of mind seems required to be a poet, but less so for a historian (though there is, I presume, no upward limit on the possible level of thought).
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20713
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God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
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From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
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A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
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