11 ideas
| 13445 | Descartes showed a one-one order-preserving match between points on a line and the real numbers [Descartes, by Hart,WD] |
| Full Idea: Descartes founded analytic geometry on the assumption that there is a one-one order-preserving correspondence between the points on a line and the real numbers. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 1 |
| 16774 | Descartes thinks distinguishing substances from aggregates is pointless [Descartes, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Descartes thinks it is a pointless relic of scholastic metaphysics to dispute over the boundaries between substances and mere aggregates. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.6 | |
| A reaction: This is Pasnau's carefully considered conclusion, with which others may not agree. It presumably captures the attitude of modern science generally to such issues. |
| 7400 | Descartes said images can refer to objects without resembling them (as words do) [Descartes, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Descartes argued (in 'The World') that just as words refer to objects, but they do not resemble them, in the same way, visual images or other sensory inputs relate to objects without depicting them. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a rather significant and plausible claim, which might contain the germ of the idea of a language of thought. It is also the basis for the recent view that language is the best route to understanding the mind. |
| 19355 | The soul doesn't understand many of its own actions, if perceptions are confused and desires buried [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The soul does many things without knowing how it does them - when it does them by means of confused perceptions and unconscious inclinations or appetites. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Note L to Bayle's 'Rorarius' [1705], [L]) | |
| A reaction: This increasingly strikes me as a wonderful and important insight for its time. He's really paid attention to his own mind, and given up the simplistic view that derives from Descartes. Are birds conscious? Yes or no! Silly. |
| 4310 | We have inner awareness of our freedom [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We have inner awareness of our freedom. | |
| From: René Descartes (works [1643]) | |
| A reaction: This begs a few questions. I may be directly aware that I have not been hypnotised, but no one would accept it as proof. |
| 6553 | Descartes discussed the interaction problem, and compared it with gravity [Descartes, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Descartes himself was well aware of the interaction problem, and corresponded uncomfortably with Princess Elizabeth on the matter; …he pointed out that gravity is causal despite not being a physical object. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by William Lycan - Consciousness n1.3 | |
| A reaction: Lycan observes that at least gravity is in space-time, unlike the Cartesian mind. Pierre Gassendi had pointed out the problem to Descartes in the Fifth Objection to the 'Meditations' (see Idea 3400). |
| 19350 | We should say that body is mechanism and soul is immaterial, asserting their independence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I think we should keep both sides: we should be more Democritean and make all actions of bodies mechanical and independent of souls, and we should also be more than Platonic and hold that all actions of souls are immaterial and independent of mechanism. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Note L to Bayle's 'Rorarius' [1705], [C]) | |
| A reaction: This is about as dualist as it is possible to get. It certainly looks as if many of Leibniz's doctrines are rebellions against Spinoza (in this case his 'dual aspect monism'). I take Leibniz to be utterly but heroically wrong. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 19676 | Nature is devoid of thought [Descartes, by Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is Descartes who ratifies the idea that nature is devoid of thought. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (works [1643]) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 5 | |
| A reaction: His dualism is crucial, along with his ontological argument, because they make all mentality supernatural. Remember, for Descartes animals are mindless machines. |
| 19356 | Minds unconsciously count vibration beats in music, and enjoy it when they coincide [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In music, the soul counts the beats of the vibrating object which makes the sound, and when these beats regularly coincide at short intervals, it finds them pleasing. Thus it counts without knowing it. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Note L to Bayle's 'Rorarius' [1705], [L]) | |
| A reaction: Only a mathematician would see music this way! He is defending his account of the unconscious mind. The proposal that we unconsciously count sounds highly implausible. He needs to recognise the patterns that ground mathematics. |
| 6518 | Matter can't just be Descartes's geometry, because a filler of the spaces is needed [Robinson,H on Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Notoriously, the Cartesian idea that matter is purely geometrical will not do, for it leaves no distinction between matter and empty volumes: a filler for these volumes is required. | |
| From: comment on René Descartes (works [1643]) by Howard Robinson - Perception IX.3 | |
| A reaction: Descartes thinks of matter as 'extension'. Descartes's error seems so obvious that it is a puzzle why he made it. He may have confused epistemology and ontology - all we can know of matter is its extension in space. |