27 ideas
| 12780 | We can grasp the wisdom of God a priori [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We can grasp the wisdom of God a priori, and not from the order of the phenomena alone. ... For the senses put nothing forward concerning metaphysical matters. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: Nice instance of the aspirations of big metaphysics, before Kant cut it down to size. The claim is not far off Plato's, that by dialectic we can work out the necessities of the Forms, to which even the gods must bow. Are necessities really kept from us? |
| 8195 | Undecidable statements result from quantifying over infinites, subjunctive conditionals, and the past tense [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: I once wrote that there are three linguistic devices that make it possible for us to frame undecidable statements: quantification over infinity totalities, as expressed by word such as 'never'; the subjunctive conditional form; and the past tense. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: Dummett now repudiates the third one. Statements containing vague concepts also appear to be undecidable. Personally I have no problems with deciding (to a fair extent) about 'never x', and 'if x were true', and 'it was x'. |
| 8194 | Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: There is surely no number n such that "n grains of sand do not make a heap, although n+1 grains of sand do" is true. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: It might be argued that there is such a number, but no human being is capable of determing it. Might God know the value of n? On the whole Dummett's view seems the most plausible. |
| 8190 | Intuitionists rely on the proof of mathematical statements, not their truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The intuitionist account of the meaning of mathematical statements does not employ the notion of a statement's being true, but only that of something's being a proof of the statement. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: I remain unconvinced that anyone could give an account of proof that didn't discreetly employ the notion of truth. What are we to make of "we suspect this is true, but no one knows how to prove it?" (e.g. Goldbach's Conjecture). |
| 8198 | A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east'. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: The phrase was coined in Oxford. It is a useful label with which realists can insult solipsists, idealists and other riff-raff. Four Dimensionalists seem to see time in this way. Events sit there, and we travel past them. But there are indexical events. |
| 12774 | Without a substantial chain to link monads, they would just be coordinated dreams [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If that substantial chain [vinculum substantiale] for monads did not exist, all bodies, together with all of their qualities, would be nothing but well-founded phenomena, like a rainbow or an image in a mirror, continual dreams perfectly in agreement. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05) | |
| A reaction: [The first appearance, apparently, of the 'susbtantial chain' in his writings] I take this to be a hugely significant move, either a defeat for monads, or the arrival of common sense. Spiritual monads must unify things, so they can't just be 'parallel'. |
| 12777 | Monads do not make a unity unless a substantial chain is added to them [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Monads do not constitute a complete composite substance, since they make up, not something one per se, but only a mere aggregate, unless some substantial chain is added. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.05.26) | |
| A reaction: This is the clearest statement in the Des Bosses letters of the need for something extra to unite monads. Since the main role of monads was to replace substances, which are only postulated to provide unity, this is rather a climb-down. |
| 12782 | Monads control nothing outside of themselves [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Monads aren't a principle of operation for things outside of themselves. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: This is why Leibniz has got into a tangle, and is proposing his 'substantial chain' to join the monads together. I suspect that he would have dumped monads if he had lived a bit longer. |
| 8192 | I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past? |
| 12778 | There is active and passive power in the substantial chain and in the essence of a composite [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I do not say there is a chain midway between matter and form, but that the substantial form and primary matter of the composite, in the Scholastic sense (the primitive power, active and passive) are in the chain, and in the essence of the composite. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: Note that this implies an essence of primitive power, and not just a collection of all properties. This is the clearest account in these letters of the nature of the 'substantial chain' he has added to his monads. |
| 12783 | Primitive force is what gives a composite its reality [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The first entelechy of a composite is a constitutive part of the composite substance, namely its primitive force. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: For me, Leibniz's most interesting proposal is to characterise Aristotelian 'form' as an active thing, which offers an intrinsic account of movement, and a bottom level for explanations. There always remains the inexplicable. Why anything? Why this? |
| 12775 | Things seem to be unified if we see duration, position, interaction and connection [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Important relations are duration (order of successive things) and position (order of coexisting things) and interaction. Position without a thing mediating is presence. Beyond these is connection when things move one another. Thus things seem to be one. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the best account I can find of his epistemological angle on the unity of things. They are symptoms of the inner power of unification, and he says that God sees these relations most clearly. |
| 12776 | Every substance is alive [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Every substance is alive. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05) | |
| A reaction: The most charitable interpretation of this is that substances are what have unity, and the best model of unity that we can grasp is the unity of an organism. The less charitable view is that he literally thinks a pebble is 'alive'. Hm. |
| 12753 | A substantial bond of powers is needed to unite composites, in addition to monads [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Some realising thing must bring it about that composite substance contains something substantial besides monads, otherwise composites will be mere phenomena. The scholastics' active and passive powers are the substantial bond I am urging. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.01.13), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This appears to be a major retreat, in the last year of Leibniz's life, from the full monadology he had espoused. How do monads connect to matter, and thus unify it? He is returning to Aristotelian hylomorphism. |
| 12781 | A composite substance is a mere aggregate if its essence is just its parts [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: An aggregate, but not a composite substance, is resolved into parts. A composite substance only needs the coming together of parts, but is not essentially constituted by them, otherwise it would be an aggregate. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: The point is that there is more to some things than there mere parts. Only some unifying principle, in addition to the mere parts, bestows a unity. Mereology is a limited activity if it has nothing to say about this issue. |
| 12779 | There is a reason why not every possible thing exists [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is a reason why not every possible thing exists. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: This is the kind of wonderful speculative metaphysical remark that we are not allowed to make any more. Needless to say, he doesn't tell us what the reason is. Overcrowding, perhaps. |
| 8199 | The existence of a universe without sentience or intelligence is an unintelligible fantasy [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The existence of a universe from which sentience was permanently absent is an unintelligible fantasy. What exists is what can be known to exist. What is true is what can be known to be true. Reality is what can be experienced and known. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense. The fact that we cannot think about a universe without introducing a viewpoint does not mean that we cannot 'intellectually imagine' its existence devoid of viewpoints. Nothing could ever experience a star's interior. |
| 12785 | Truth is mutually agreed perception [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In the mutual agreement of perceivers consists the truth of the phenomena. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: This remark is startling close to the 'perspectivism' that crops up in the late notebooks of Nietzsche. Leibniz was keen on relativism in many areas, starting with the nature of space. I personally think Leibniz meant 'knowledge' rather than 'truth'. |
| 8193 | Verification is not an individual but a collective activity [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Verification is not an individual but a collective activity. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This generates problems. Are deceased members of the community included? (Yes, says Dummett). If someone speaks to angels (Blake!), do they get included? Is a majority necessary? What of weird loners? Etc. |
| 8189 | Truth-condition theorists must argue use can only be described by appeal to conditions of truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: To demonstrate the necessity of a truth-conditional theory of meaning, a proponent of such a theory must argue that use cannot be described without appeal to the conditions for the truth of statements. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Unlike Dummett, I find that argument rather appealing. How do you decide the possible or appropriate use for a piece of language, if you don't already know what it means. Basing it all on social conventions means it could be meaningless ritual. |
| 8191 | The truth-conditions theory must get agreement on a conception of truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough for the truth-condition theorist to argue that we need the concept of truth: he must show that we should have the same conception of truth that he has. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson invites us to accept Tarski's account of truth. It invites the question of what the theory would be like with a very robust correspondence account of truth, or a flabby rather subjective coherence view, or the worst sort of pragmatic view. |
| 17371 | Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: Explanatory significance, hence naturalness, comes in degrees: positing some kinds may be very explanatory, positing others, only a little bit explanatory, positing others still, not explanatory at all. | |
| From: Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: He mentions 'cousin' as a natural kind that is not very explanatory of anything. It interests us as humans, but not at all in other animals, it seems. ...Nice thought, though, that two squirrels might be cousins... |
| 8197 | Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Maybe both the past and the future are real, determined by our current temporal perspective. Past is then events capable of having a causal influence upon events near us, and future is events we can affect, but from which we receive no information. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the Four-Dimensional view, which is opposed to Presentism. Might immediate unease is that it gives encouragement to fortune-tellers, whom I have always dismissed with 'You can't see the future, because it doesn't exist'. |
| 8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The idea that only the present is real cannot be sustained. St Augustine pointed out that the present has no duration; it is a mere boundary between past and future, and dependent on them. It also denies truth-value to statements about past or future. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: To defend Presentism, I suspect that one must focus entirely on the activities of consciousness and short-term memory. All truths, of past or future, must refer totally to such mental events. But what could an event be if there is no enduring time? |
| 17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: The signs are that the higher categories are not natural kinds and so the Linnaean hierarchy must be abandoned. ...This is not abandoning a hierarchy altogether, it is not abandoning a tree of life. | |
| From: Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 6) | |
| A reaction: Devitt's underlying point is that the higher and more general kinds do not have an essence (a specific nature), which is the qualification to be a natural kind. They explain nothing. Essence is the hallmark of natural kinds. Hmmm. |
| 17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: Species pluralism is the view that there are several equally good accounts of what it is to be a species. | |
| From: Michael Devitt (Natural Kinds and Biological Realism [2009], 7) | |
| A reaction: Devitt votes for it, and cites Dupré, among many other. Given the existence of rival accounts, all making good points, it is hard to resist this view. |
| 12784 | Allow no more miracles than are necessary [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Miracles should not be increased beyond necessity. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz defends miracles (where Spinoza dismisses them). This remark is, of course, an echo of Ockham's Razor, that 'entities' should not be multiplied beyond necessity. It is hard to disagree with his proposal. Zero might be result, though. |