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All the ideas for 'Free Will as Involving Determinism', 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz' and 'A Free Will'

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22 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / e. Late classical philosophy
23326 In the third century Stoicism died out, replaced by Platonism, with Aristotelian ethics [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: By the second century CE Aristotelianism and Platonism had begun to eclipse Stoicism, and by the end of the third century Stoicism had no followers. All philosophers now opted for some form of Platonism, but including Aristotle's ethical principles.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 04)
     A reaction: The idea that Aristotelian ethics dominated that period is new to me. Stoic influence remained strong in Augustine, and hence in Christianity.
23335 In late antiquity nearly all philosophers were monotheists [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: I am inclined to think that almost all philosophers in late antiquity were monotheists.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 08)
     A reaction: I'm not sure when late antiquity begins, in this remark. Maybe as early as 100 CE. Epictetus talks of Zeus as if he is supreme.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
13076 Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
     A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
13102 If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.
13103 Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
13104 Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
     A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
13100 Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
     A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
13068 We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
     A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
13069 The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13072 Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2)
     A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties.
17080 Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2)
     A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
13101 Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
13081 Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46)
     A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is!
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
13071 We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
23334 For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis) [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: The Christian view, following Genesis, is that man is created in the image of God, and this is understood as crucially involving the idea that man has a free will in the image of God's will.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 08)
     A reaction: The idea of free will evidently originated with Epictetus, but was taken up by Christians because it fitted doctrinal needs. Even Epictetus saw free will as originating in Zeus.
23333 The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: There is no doubt that the notion of a free will found almost universal acceptance owing to the influence of Christianity.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 07)
     A reaction: This is presumably because a free will not only elevates us above the animals, qualifying us for immortality, but also gives us absolute and ultimate responsibility for our lives, which thus justifies either salvation or damnation.
23337 The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: The Stoics said that everything happens according to a divine providential plan, so they had to explain how this was compatible with human choices. They tried to do this with their doctrine of freedom and a free will.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 10)
     A reaction: Epictetus made our ability to choose central to moral life, so he particularly needed (and thus created, it seems) this doctrine.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
22371 Determinism threatens free will if actions can be causally traced to external factors [Foot]
     Full Idea: The determinism which worries the defender of free will is that if human action is subject to a universal law of causation, there will be for any action a set of sufficient conditions which can be traced back to factors outside the control of the agent.
     From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.63)
     A reaction: She draws on Russell for this, but neither of them mention whether the causation is physical. Free will seems to imply non-physical causation.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
23336 There is no will for Plato or Aristotle, because actions come directly from perception of what is good [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle do not have a notion of a will, since for them a willing, a desire of reason, is a direct result of one's cognitive state: once one sees something to be good, one will it.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], 09)
     A reaction: The point is that their decisions are 'direct', whereas the will introduces the concept of a final arbiter which weighs up the desires, reasons and drives. The historical steps were first the meta-choosing, then the will as entity, then the will as free.
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
22372 Not all actions need motives, but it is irrational to perform troublesome actions with no motive [Foot]
     Full Idea: We do not expect that everything a rational man does should be done with a motive, ...but we do expect a man to have a motive for many things that he does, and would count anyone who constantly performed troublesome actions without a motive as irrational.
     From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.66)
     A reaction: Interestng, because the assessment of whether someone is 'rational' therefore needs a criterion for when a motive seems required and when not. 'Significant' actions need a motive?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character
22373 People can act out of vanity without being vain, or even vain about this kind of thing [Foot]
     Full Idea: It makes sense to say that a man acts out of vanity on a particular occasion although he is not in general vain, or even vain about this kind of thing.
     From: Philippa Foot (Free Will as Involving Determinism [1957], p.69)
     A reaction: Aristotle tells us that virtues and vices are habits, and also have an intellectual component, implying that the person believes in that sort of behaviour. Anyone can have 'a little moment of vanity'.
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 4. Dualist Religion
23313 The Gnostic demiurge (creator) is deluded, and doesn't care about us [Frede,M]
     Full Idea: The Gnostics thought the demiurge or creator pursues its own interests without regard for what this does to us, a being lacking in wisdom and goodness, as seen by its deluding itself into thinking that it is God, and demanding worship.
     From: Michael Frede (A Free Will [1997], Intro)
     A reaction: Frede mentions Irenaeus as a source of this view. The idea that the Great Being doesn't care about us seems a fairly accurate observation.