16620
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A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Nothing can be compounded of matter and form. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it has, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure?
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:302), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
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A reaction:
Aristotle does use the word 'shape' [morphe] when he is discussing hylomorphism, and the statue example seems to support it, but elsewhere the form is a much deeper principle of individuation.
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16622
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Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the art of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:308), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
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A reaction:
I sympathise quite a lot with this view, but not with its dismissive tone. The key question I take to be: if you reject essences entirely (having read too much physics), how are we going to think about entities in the world in future?
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20024
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Davidson gave up reductive accounts of intention, and said it was a primitive [Davidson, by Wilson/Schpall]
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Full Idea:
Later Davidson dropped his reductive treatment of intentions (in terms of 'pro-attitudes' and other beliefs), and accepted that intentions are irreducible, and distinct from pro-attitudes.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (Intending [1978]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
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A reaction:
Only a philosopher would say that intentions cannot be reduced to something else. Since I have a very physicalist view of the mind, I incline to reduce them to powers and dispositions of physical matter.
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