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6019
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If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus]
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Full Idea:
If, for the sake of argument, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously did not exist but now does exist.
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From:
Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11
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A reaction:
Locke would say it is new, because the substance is the same, but a new life now exists. A sword could cease to exist and become a new ploughshare, I would think. Apply this to the Ship of Theseus. Is form more important than substance?
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21947
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Power is localised, so we either have totalitarian centralisation, or local politics [Foucault, by Gutting]
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Full Idea:
Foucault's analysis suggests that meaningful revolution, hence genuine liberation, is impossible: the only alternative to the modern net of micro-centres of power is totalitatian domination. Hence his politics, even when revolutionary, is always local.
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From:
report of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish [1977]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 8
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A reaction:
It is hard to disagree with this.
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21946
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Prisons gradually became our models for schools, hospitals and factories [Foucault, by Gutting]
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Full Idea:
Foucault's thesis is that disciplinary techniques introduced for criminals became the model for other modern sites of control (schools, hospitals, factories), so that prison discipline pervades all of society.
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From:
report of Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish [1977]) by Gary Gutting - Foucault: a very short introduction 8
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A reaction:
Someone recently designed Foucault Monopoly, where every location is a prison. All tightly controlled organisations, such as a medieval monastery, or the Roman army, will inevitably share many features.
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16746
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Principles of things are not hidden features of forms, but the laws by which they were formed [Newton]
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Full Idea:
The (active) principles I consider not as occult qualities, supposed to result from the specific forms of things, but as general laws of nature, by which the things themselves are formed.
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From:
Isaac Newton (Queries to the 'Opticks' [1721], q 31), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
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A reaction:
This is the external, 'imposed' view of laws (with the matter passive) at its most persuasive. If laws arise out the stuff (as I prefer to think), what principles went into the formulation of the stuff?
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