7 ideas
| 13174 | A piece of flint contains something resembling perceptions and appetites [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I don't say that bodies like flint, which are commonly called inanimate, have perceptions and appetition; rather they have something of that sort in them, like worms are in cheese. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Johann Bernoulli [1699], 1698.12.17) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz is caricatured as thinking that stones are full of little active minds, but he nearly always says that what he is proposing is 'like' or 'analogous to' that. His only real point is that nature is active, as seen in the appetites of animals. |
| 13175 | Entelechies are analogous to souls, as other minds are analogous to our own minds [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Just as we somehow conceive other souls and intelligences on analogy with our own souls, I wanted whatever other primitive entelechies there may be remote from our senses to be conceived on analogy with souls. They are not conceived perfectly. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Johann Bernoulli [1699], 1698.12.17) | |
| A reaction: This is the clearest evidence I can find that Leibniz does not think of monads as actually being souls. He is struggling to explain their active character. Garber thinks that Leibniz hasn't arrived at proper monads at this date. |
| 15990 | Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke] |
| Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist. | |
| From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism | |
| A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species. |
| 13172 | What we cannot imagine may still exist [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It does not follow that what we can't imagine does not exist. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Johann Bernoulli [1699], 1698.11.18) | |
| A reaction: This just establishes the common sense end of the debate - that you cannot just use your imagination as the final authority on what exists, or what is possible. |
| 15994 | If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke] |
| Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge. | |
| From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism | |
| A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it. |
| 13173 | Death is just the contraction of an animal [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Death is nothing but the contraction of an animal, just as generation is nothing but its unfolding. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Johann Bernoulli [1699], 1698.11.18) | |
| A reaction: This is possibly the most bizarre view that I have found in Leibniz. He seemed to thing that if you burnt an animal on a bonfire, some little atom of life would remain among the ashes. I can't see why he would believe such a thing. |
| 23223 | The word 'respect' ranges from mere non-interference to the highest levels of reverence [Blackburn] |
| Full Idea: The word 'respect' seems to span a spectrum from simply not interfering, passing by on the other side, through admiration, right up to reverence and deference. This makes it uniquely well placed for ideological purposes. | |
| From: Simon Blackburn (Religion and Respect [2005], p.2) | |
| A reaction: Most people understand the world perfectly well, but only when they fully understand the context. I've taken to distinguishing conditional from unconditional forms of respect. Everyone is entitled to the unconditional form, which has limits. |