6 ideas
| 6019 | If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus] |
| 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. | |
| From: Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11 | |
| 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? |
| 12732 | Some necessary truths are brute, and others derive from final causes [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is a difference between truths whose necessity is brute and geometric and those truths which have their source in fitness and final causes. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715.06.22/G III 645), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6 | |
| A reaction: The second one is a necessity deriving from God's wisdom. Strictly it could have been otherwise, unlike 'geometrical' necessity, which is utterly fixed. |
| 19438 | Our large perceptions and appetites are made up tiny unconscious fragments [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Our great perceptions and our great appetites of which we are conscious, are composed of innumerable little perceptions and little inclinations of which we cannot be conscious. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715 §2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a wonderfully accurate report of how the mind is, in comparison with the much more simplistic views presented by most philosophers of that era. And so much understanding flows from Leibniz's account. |
| 19415 | Passions reside in confused perceptions [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The passions of monads reside in their confused perceptions. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715) | |
| A reaction: He thinks perceptions come in degrees of confusion, all the way up to God, who alone has fully clear perceptions. He blames in on these confused perceptions. |
| 1590 | The just man does not harm his enemies, but benefits everyone [Plato] |
| Full Idea: First, Socrates, you told me justice is harming your enemies and helping your friends. But later it seemed that the just man, since everything he does is for someone's benefit, never harms anyone. | |
| From: Plato (Clitophon [c.372 BCE], 410b) | |
| A reaction: Socrates certainly didn't subscribe to the first view, which is the traditional consensus in Greek culture. In general Socrates agreed with the views later promoted by Jesus. |
| 19439 | God produces possibilities, and thus ideas [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: God is the source of possibilities and consequently of ideas. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715 §8) | |
| A reaction: A wonderfully individual conception of the nature of God. He produces the possibilities from which creation is chosen, and ideas and concepts are of everything which is non-contradictory, and thus possible. It all makes lovely sense! |