7 ideas
| 16005 | I recognise knowledge, but it is the truth by which I can live and die that really matters [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: The thing is to find a truth which is true for me - the idea for which I can live and die. I still recognise an imperative of knowledge, but it must be taken up into my life, which I now recognise as the most important thing. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (Letter to Peter Wilhelm Lund [1835], J-1A) | |
| A reaction: A quintessentially existential idea. Note that he still considers objective knowledge to be quite important, but how we act and relate to those ideas is what really matters for us human beings. [SY] |
| 23026 | We know mathematical axioms, such as subtracting equals from equals leaves equals, by a natural light [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is by the natural light that the axioms of mathematics are recognised. If we take away the same quantity from two equal things, …a thing we can easily predict without having experienced it. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], p.189) | |
| A reaction: He also says two equal weights will keep a balance level. Plato thinks his slave boy understands halving an area by the natural light, but that is just as likely to be experience. It is too easy to attribut thoughts to a 'natural light'. |
| 18431 | Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards] |
| Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes. | |
| From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5 | |
| A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials? |
| 13189 | A necessary feature (such as air for humans) is not therefore part of the essence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: That which is necessary for something does not constitute its essence. Air is necessary for our life, but our life is something other than air. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: Bravo. Why can't modern philosophers hang on to this distinction? They seem to think that because they don't believe in traditional essences they can purloin the word for something else. Same with the word 'abstraction'. |
| 19432 | Intelligible truth is independent of any external things or experiences [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Intelligible truth is independent of the truth or of the existence outside us of sensible and material things. ....It is generally true that we only know necessary truths by the natural light [of reason] | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: A nice quotation summarising a view for which Leibniz is famous - that there is a tight correlation between necessary truths and our a priori knowledge of them. The obvious challenge comes from Kripke's claim that scientists can discover necessities. |
| 19430 | We know objects by perceptions, but their qualities don't reveal what it is we are perceiving [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We use the external senses ...to make us know their particular objects ...but they do not make us know what those sensible qualities are ...whether red is small revolving globules causing light, heat a whirling of dust, or sound is waves in air. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: These seems to be exactly the concept of secondary qualities which Locke was promoting. They are unreliable information about the objects we perceive. Primary qualities are reliable information. I like that distinction. |
| 19431 | There is nothing in the understanding but experiences, plus the understanding itself, and the understander [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It can be said that there is nothing in the understanding which does not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or that which understands. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: Given that Leibniz is labelled as a 'rationalist', this is awfully close to empiricism. Not Locke's 'tabula rasa' perhaps, but Hume's experiences plus associations. Leibniz has a much loftier notion of understanding and reason than Hume does. |