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6602
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Philosophy is like a statue which is worshipped but never advances [Bacon]
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Full Idea:
Philosophy and the intellectual sciences stand like statues, worshipped and celebrated, but not moved or advanced.
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From:
Francis Bacon (Preface to Great Instauration (Renewal) [1620], Vol.4.14), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5
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A reaction:
Still the view of most scientists, I suspect. Personally I disagree, because I think philosophy has made enormous advances, in accurate analysis of arguments. The trouble is there is so much of it that it is hard to discern, and we don't live long enough.
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12741
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If experience is just a dream, it is still real enough if critical reason is never deceived [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Even if this whole life were said to be only a dream, and the visible world only a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough if we were never deceived by it when we make good use of reason.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
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A reaction:
I find this response more satisfactory than his response in Idea 12740. As a supporter of the coherence account of justification, I take the closest we get to knowledge to be when our full critical faculties and experience are brought to bear, and shared.
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12740
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The strongest criterion that phenomena show reality is success in prediction [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
The most powerful criterion of the reality of phenomena, sufficient even by itself, is success in predicting future phenomena from past and present ones.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
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A reaction:
I would say that this is clutching at straws, as there is no reason at all to deny that dreams could be thoroughly coherent and predictable in their events. We must just live with these doubts, not try to defeat them.
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12721
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Light, heat and colour are apparent qualities, and so are motion, figure and extension [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Concerning bodies I can demonstrate that not merely light, heat, color, and similar qualities are apparent but also motion, figure, and extension.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1504), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
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A reaction:
Leibniz is not consistent on this. Here he is flirting with idealism, but he often backs away from that. In Discourse §12 he makes secondary qualities certainly subjective, and primary qualities possibly so. He admits the primaries contain eternal truths.
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