63 ideas
12747 | Monads are not extended, but have a kind of situation in extension [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Even if monads are not extended, they nonetheless have a certain kind of situation in extension. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
A reaction: This is the kind of metaphysical mess you get into if you start from the wrong premisses (in this case, a dualism of the spiritual and the material). Later (Garber p.359) he says they are situated because they 'preside' over a mass. |
12748 | Only monads are substances, and bodies are collections of them [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: A monad alone is a substance; a body is substances not a substance. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.01.21), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
A reaction: So how many monads in a drop of urine, as Voltaire bluntly wondered. I take the Cartesian dualism (without interaction) that ran through Leibniz's career to be the source of most of his metaphysical problems. In late career it went badly wrong. |
13184 | The division of nature into matter makes distinct appearances, and that presupposes substances [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: If there were no divisions of matter in nature, there would be no things that are different; just the mere possibility of things. It is the actual division into masses that really produces things that appear distinct, which presupposes simple substances. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
A reaction: This shows Leibniz to be a straightforward realist about the physical world, and certainly not an 'idealist', despite the mind-like character of monads. I take this to be an argument for reality from best explanation, which is all that's available. |
13188 | The only indications of reality are agreement among phenomena, and their agreement with necessities [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: We don't have, nor should we hope for, any mark of reality in phenomena, but the fact that they agree with one another and with eternal truths. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19) | |
A reaction: Elsewhere he says that divisions in appearance imply divisions in matter. Now he adds two further arguments in favour of realism, but admits that nothing conclusive is available. Quite right. |
12752 | Only unities have any reality [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: There is no reality in anything except the reality of unities. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9 | |
A reaction: This seems to leave indeterminate stuff like air and water with no reality, as nicely discussed by Henry Laycock. Do we just force unities on the world because that is the only way our minds can cope with it? |
13187 | In actual things nothing is indefinite [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: In actual things nothing is indefinite. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1706.01.19) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the germ of the controversial modern view of Williamson, that vagueness is entirely epistemic, and that the facts of nature are entirely definite. Thus there is a tallest short giraffe, which I find a bit hard to grasp. |
19383 | A man's distant wife dying is a real change in him [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: No one can become a widower in India because of the death of his wife in Europe unless a real change occurs in him. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], GP ii 240), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist' | |
A reaction: This is Leibniz heroically denying so-called 'Cambridge Change'. It is hard to see how a widower is changed if he has not yet heard the bad news. But his situation in life has changed. Compare eudaimonia, which you can lose without realising it. |
13076 | Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1) | |
A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata? |
13179 | A complete monad is a substance with primitive active and passive power [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: What I take to be the indivisible or complete monad is the substance endowed with primitive power, active and passive, like the 'I' or something similar. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
A reaction: I love powers, so I really like this quotation. By this date even Garber thinks that he has more or less arrived at his mature view of monads. I used to think monads were mad, but I now think he is closing in on the right answer - sort of. |
12749 | Derivate forces are in phenomena, but primitive forces are in the internal strivings of substances [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I relegate derivative forces to the phenomena, but I think that it is clear that primitive forces can be nothing other than the internal strivings of simple substances. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1705.01), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8 | |
A reaction: I like 'internal strivings', which sounds to me like the Will to Power (Idea 7140). There seems to be an epistemological challenge in trying to disentangle the derivative forces from the primitive ones. |
12722 | Thought terminates in force, rather than extension [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I believe that our thought is completed and terminated more in the notion of the dynamic [i.e. force] than in that of extension. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], G II 170), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4 | |
A reaction: Presenting this as the place where 'our thought' is 'terminated' seems to place it as mainly having a role in explanation, rather than in speculative metaphysics. |
13102 | If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?' | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place. |
13103 | Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job. |
19379 | The law of the series, which determines future states of a substance, is what individuates it [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: That there should be a persistent law of the series, which involves the future states of that which we conceive to be the same, is exactly what I say constitutes it as the same substance. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 4 'Applying' | |
A reaction: The 'law of the series' is a bit dubious, but it is reasonable to say that a substance is individuated by its coherent progress of change over time. Disjointed change would imply an absence of substance. The law of the series is called 'primitive force'. |
13104 | Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4) | |
A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity? |
13100 | Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3) | |
A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously. |
13068 | We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance? | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1) | |
A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence. |
13069 | The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2) | |
A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open. |
13072 | Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2) | |
A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties. |
17080 | Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2) | |
A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates. |
13182 | Changeable accidents are modifications of unchanging essences [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Everything accidental or changeable ought to be a modification of something essential or perpetual. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30) | |
A reaction: Clear evidence that Leibniz is very much a traditional Aristotelian essentialist, and not as modal logicians tend to characterise him, as a super-essentialist who thinks all properties are essential. They are necessary for identity, but that's different. |
13101 | Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1) | |
A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant). |
13178 | Things in different locations are different because they 'express' those locations [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Things that differ in place must express their place, that is, they must express the things surrounding, and thus they must be distinguished not only by place, that is, not by an extrinsic denomination alone, as is commonly thought. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
A reaction: This is an unusual view, which has some attractions, as it enables the relations of a thing to individuate it, while maintaining that this is a real difference in character. |
19411 | In nature there aren't even two identical straight lines, so no two bodies are alike [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: In nature any straight line you may take is individually different from any other straight line you may find. Accordingly, it cannot come about that two bodies are perfectly equal and alike. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
A reaction: Leibniz was very good at persuasive examples! It remains unclear, though, why he takes the Identity of Indiscernibles to be a necessary truth, when he seems to have only observed it from experience. This is counter to his other principles. |
19412 | If two bodies only seem to differ in their position, those different environments will matter [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: If two bodies differ only in their position, their individual relations to the environment must be taken into account, so that more is involved in their distinguishability than just position. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
A reaction: This seems to allow that two bodies could be intrinsically type-identical (though differing in extrinsic features), which is contrary to his normal view. I suppose a different location in the gravitational field will make an intrinsic difference. |
13081 | Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46) | |
A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is! |
19410 | Scientific truths are supported by mutual agreement, as well as agreement with the phenomena [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Among the most powerful indications of truth belongs the fact that scientific propositions agree with one another as well as with phenomena. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24/04.03) | |
A reaction: I take this to be the case not only with science, but with all other truths. Leibniz is particularly keen on the interconnectedness of things, so coherence justification suits him especially well. But surely all scientists embrace this idea? |
13071 | We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships. | |
From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2) | |
A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view. |
13183 | Primitive forces are internal strivings of substances, acting according to their internal laws [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Primitive forces can be nothing but the internal strivings [tendentia] of simple substances, striving by means of which they pass from perception to perception in accordance with a certain law of their nature. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
A reaction: 'Perception' sounds a bit crazy, but he usually qualifies that sort of remark by saying that it is an 'analogy' with conscious willing souls. The 'internal strivings of substances' is a nice phrase for the basic powers in nature where explanations stop. |
19409 | Soul represents body, but soul remains unchanged, while body continuously changes [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The essence of the soul is to represent bodies. ...The soul and the idea of the body do not signify the same thing. For the soul remains one and the same, while the idea of the body perpetually changes as the body itself changes. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24/04.03) | |
A reaction: This seems to rest on the Cartesian Ego, as the essence of mind which does not change. And yet elsewhere he describes the Ego as a mere abstraction from introspected mental life. |
11873 | Our notions may be formed from concepts, but concepts are formed from things [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: You assert that the notion of substance is formed from concepts, and not from things. But are not concepts themselves formed from things? | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.06.23), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 5.7 | |
A reaction: A nice remark, which is true even of highly abstruse, abstract or fanciful concepts. You are still left with the question of how far away from reality you have moved when you construct things from your reality-based concepts. |
13186 | Universals are just abstractions by concealing some of the circumstances [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: In forming universals the soul only abstracts certain circumstances by concealing innumerable others. ..A spherical body complete in all respects is nowhere in nature; the soul forms such a notion by concealing aberrations. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
A reaction: This is Leibniz's affirmation of traditional 'abstraction by ignoring', which everyone seems to have believed in before Frege, and which I personally think is simply correct, even though it is deeply unfashionable and I keep it to myself. |
7222 | It is a crime for someone with a violent disposition to get drunk [Mill] |
Full Idea: The making himself drunk, in a person whom drunkenness excites to do harm to others, is a crime against others. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This principle (based on knowing your own dispositions) is a very good account of the ethics drunkenness. We have a moral duty to know and remember our own dispositions. Violent people should avoid arguments as well as alcohol. |
7214 | Ethics rests on utility, which is the permanent progressive interests of people [Mill] |
Full Idea: I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of a man as a progressive being. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Mill, writing in praise of personal liberty, is desperate to introduce a paternalistic element into his politics, and the 'maximisation of happiness' will justify such paternalism, while his basic liberal principle (Idea 7211) won't. Mill's Dilemma. |
7212 | Individuals have sovereignty over their own bodies and minds [Mill] |
Full Idea: Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: If I should not even think about evil deeds, then neither should you. I would prevent you if I could. I would prevent you from drinking yourself to death, if I could. It is just that intrusions into private lives leads to greater trouble. |
7210 | The will of the people is that of the largest or most active part of the people [Mill] |
Full Idea: The will of the people practically means the will of the most numerous or the most active part of the people. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Hence the nicely coined modern phrase 'the silent majority', on whose behalf certain politicians, usually conservative, offer to speak. It is unlikely that the silent majority are actually deeply opposed to the views of the very active part. |
7227 | It is evil to give a government any more power than is necessary [Mill] |
Full Idea: Government interference should be restricted because of the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This would need justification, because it might be replied that individuals should not have unnecessary power either. The main problem is that governments have armies, police and money. |
7228 | Individuals often do things better than governments [Mill] |
Full Idea: Government power should be restricted because things are often done better by individuals. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This contains some truth, but it is obvious that innumerable things can be done better by governments, and also (and more importantly) that innumerable other good things might be done by governments which individuals can't be bothered to do. |
7230 | Aim for the maximum dissemination of power consistent with efficiency [Mill] |
Full Idea: The safest practical ideal is to aim for the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice principle, which I would think desirable within an institution as well as on the scale of the state. I am becoming a fan of Mill's politics. I still say that freedom is an overrated virtue, so efficiency must be underrated. |
20515 | Maximise happiness by an area of strict privacy, and an area of utilitarian interventions [Mill, by Wolff,J] |
Full Idea: For Mill the greatest happiness will be achieved by giving people a private sphere of interests where no intervention is permitted, while allowing a public sphere where intervention is possible, but only on utilitarian grounds. | |
From: report of John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 4 'Liberty' | |
A reaction: This is probably standard liberal practice nowadays. Freely consenting adult sexual activity is agreed to be wholly private. At least some lip-service is paid to increasing happiness when government intervenes. |
7229 | People who transact their own business will also have the initiative to control their government [Mill] |
Full Idea: A people accustomed to transacting their own business is certain to be free; it will never let itself be enslaved by any man or body of men because these are able to seize and pull the reins of the central administration. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: He makes reference to Americans. This is an important idea, because it shows that democratic control is not just a matter of elections (which can be abolished or suborned), but is also a characteristic of a certain way of life. |
7211 | Prevention of harm to others is the only justification for exercising power over people [Mill] |
Full Idea: The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others; his own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This is the key idea in Mill's liberalism, though he goes on to offer some qualifications of this absolute prohibition. I don't disagree with this principle, but there may be a lot more indirect harm than we realise (eg. in allowing liberal sex or drugs). |
7231 | The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it [Mill] |
Full Idea: The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This is a key idea of liberalism, opposed to any idea that we should abandon our own value to that of our state. I agree, but communitarians can subscribe to this too, while disagreeing that maximum freedom is the strategy to follow. |
7217 | The main argument for freedom is that interference with it is usually misguided [Mill] |
Full Idea: The strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct is that, when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is also a well known objection to capital punishment. Generalised, well established, legal interferences are perhaps more likely to get it right than ad hoc decisions about individuals by individual officials. |
7213 | Liberty arises at the point where people can freely and equally discuss things [Mill] |
Full Idea: Liberty, as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have become capable of being improved by free and equal discussion. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: There is a Victorian (and Enlightenment) optimism here which a glimpse of the freedoms of the early twenty-first century might dampen. I doubt if Mill expected British tabloid newspapers, or porn on cable TV. Education and freedom connect. |
20516 | Mill defends freedom as increasing happiness, but maybe it is an intrinsic good [Wolff,J on Mill] |
Full Idea: Mill has presented liberty as instrumentally valuable, as a way of achieving the greatest possible happiness in society. But perhaps he should have argued that liberty is an intrinsic good, good in itself. | |
From: comment on John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 4 'Intrinsic' | |
A reaction: If freedom is intrinsically good, does this leave us (as Wolff warned earlier) unable to defend its value? Freedom isn't an intrinsic good for infants, so why should it be so for adults? Good because it brings happiness, or fulfils our nature? |
20517 | Utilitarianism values liberty, but guides us on which ones we should have or not have [Mill, by Wolff,J] |
Full Idea: Utilitarianism provides an account of what liberties we should and should not have. Mill argues we should be free to compete in trade, but not to use another's property without consent. Thus he sets limits to liberty, while paying it great respect. | |
From: report of John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 4 'Intrinsic' |
7215 | True freedom is pursuing our own good, while not impeding others [Mill] |
Full Idea: The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This principle will probably lead up a Prisoner's Dilemma cul-de-sac. The only freedom which deserves the name is the collective agreed freedom of a whole community to live well, when citizens volunteer to restrict their individual freedoms. |
7220 | Restraint for its own sake is an evil [Mill] |
Full Idea: All restraint, qua restraint, is an evil. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: The ultimate justification for this is (presumably) utilitarian, but that would mean that there was nothing wrong with restraint if the person did not mind, or was not aware of the restraint. What is intrinsically wrong with restraint? |
7218 | Individuals are not accountable for actions which only concern themselves [Mill] |
Full Idea: My first maxim is that the individual is not accountable to society for his actions, in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This is a key idea of liberalism, and one which communitarians have doubts about (because it is almost impossible to perform an action which is of no interest, in the short or long term, to others). I share these doubts. |
7221 | Blocking entry to an unsafe bridge does not infringe liberty, since no one wants unsafe bridges [Mill] |
Full Idea: An official could turn a person back from an unsafe bridge without infringeing their liberty; for liberty consists in doing what one desires, and he does not desire to fall into the river. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Seems fair enough, but it justifies paternalist interference. The tricky one is where the official and the citizen disagree over what the citizen 'truly' desires. Asking people may involve too much time, but it could also involve too much effort. |
7223 | Pimping and running a gambling-house are on the border between toleration and restraint [Mill] |
Full Idea: A person being free to be a pimp, or to keep a gambling-house, lies on the exact boundary line between two principles, of toleration and of restraint. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Nothing illuminates a philosopher's principles more than for them to specify cases that lie on their borderlines. Both professions seem, unfortunately, to lead people into worse activities, such as violent bullying, or theft. Tricky.. |
7219 | Society can punish actions which it believes to be prejudicial to others [Mill] |
Full Idea: My second maxim is that for actions that are prejudicial to the interests of others, the individual is accountable, and subject to social or legal punishment, if society believes that this is requisite for its protection. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: (wording compressed). The trouble with this would seem to be the possible disagreement between the individual and the society over whether the actions actually are prejudicial to others. It would justify a conservative society in being repressive. |
7226 | Benefits performed by individuals, not by government, help also to educate them [Mill] |
Full Idea: It is often desirable that beneficial things should be done by individuals, rather than by the government, as a means to their own mental education. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This raises the important danger, which even those on the political left must acknowledge, of the 'nanny state'. It offers a nicely paternalistic, and even patronising reason for giving people freedom, just as a parent might to a child. |
7224 | We need individual opinions and conduct, and State education is a means to prevent that [Mill] |
Full Idea: Individuality of character, and diversity in opinions and modes of conduct, involves diversity of education; a general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as being particularly true with the advent in Britain of the National Curriculum in the early 1990s. However, if there is a pressure towards conformity in state education, private education is dominated by class and money. |
7225 | It is a crime to create a being who lacks the ordinary chances of a desirable existence [Mill] |
Full Idea: To bestow a life on someone which may be either a curse or a blessing, unless the being on whom it is to be bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a desirable existence, is a crime against that being. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This is the standard utilitarian attitude to engendering people. I think I have to agree. It is no argument against this to say that we value people with poor life prospects, once they have arrived. Altruism towards children may disguise selfish parents. |
13185 | Even if extension is impenetrable, this still offers no explanation for motion and its laws [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Even if we grant impenetrability is added to extension, nothing complete is brought about, nothing from which a reason for motion, and especially the laws of motion, can be given. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704 or 1705) | |
A reaction: When it comes to the reasons for the so-called 'laws of nature', scientists give up, because they've only got mathematical descriptions, whereas the philosopher won't give up (even though, embarassingly, the evidence is running a bit thin). |
13177 | An entelechy is a law of the series of its event within some entity [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I recognize a primitive entelechy in the active force found in motion, something analogous to the soul, whose nature consists in a certain law of the same series of changes. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699.03.24) | |
A reaction: This is his 'law-of-the-series', which is a speculative attempt to pin down the character of the active essence of things which gives rise to activity. The law of such activity is within the things themselves, as scientific essentialists claim. |
13093 | The only permanence in things, constituting their substance, is a law of continuity [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Nothing is permanent in things except the law itself, which involves a continuous succession ...The fact that a certain law persists ...is the very fact that constitutes the same substance. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704) | |
A reaction: Aristotle and Leibniz are the very clear ancestors of modern scientific essentialism. I've left out a few inconvenient bits, about containing 'the whole universe', and containing all 'future states'. For Leibniz, laws are entirely rooted in things. |
13096 | The force behind motion is like a soul, with its own laws of continual change [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I recognise, in the active force which exerts itself through motion, the primitive entelechy or in a word, something analogous to the soul, whose nature consists in a certain perpetual law of the same series of changes through which it runs unhindered. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1699), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.3 | |
A reaction: This is a hugely metaphysical account of force, contrasting with Newton's largely mathematical account. He very often says that force is 'analogous' to the soul, rather than that it actually is a soul. He never quite believes that monads are real minds. |
13180 | Space is the order of coexisting possibles [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Extension is the order of coexisting possibles. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
A reaction: [In his next letter he uses the word 'space' instead of 'extension'] This is a rather startling different and modal definition of space. Cf Idea 13181. |
13181 | Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Time is the order of inconsistent possibilities. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1703.06.20) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 13180. This sounds wonderfully bold and interesting, but I can't make much sense of it. One might say it is 'an' order for such things, but 'the' order is weird. |
7216 | The ethics of the Gospel has been supplemented by barbarous Old Testament values [Mill] |
Full Idea: To extract from the Gospel a body of ethical doctrine, has never been possible withouth eking it out from the Old Testament, that is, from a system elaborate indeed, but in many respects barbarous, and intended only for a barbarous people. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: 'Barbarous' has a quaint Victorian ring to it, but his point is that the surviving teachings of Jesus are very thin and generalised. Christians would do better to expand their implications, than to borrow from the Old Testament. |