6 ideas
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. |
5960 | When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch] |
Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance. | |
From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001) | |
A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason. |
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. |
21867 | Conatus is brain circuits seeking survival and well-being [Damasio] |
Full Idea: Conatus is explicable as the aggregate of dispositions laid down in brain circuitry that seeks both survival and well-being. | |
From: Antonio Damasio (Looking for Spinoza [2003], p.36) | |
A reaction: So conatus is the motivation of my inner personal assistant, who reminds me what I am doing later today. I like the mention of dispositions, hence powers. |
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. |
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! |