Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'works' and 'De modo distinguendi phaenomena'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism

12741	If experience is just a dream, it is still real enough if critical reason is never deceived [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Even if this whole life were said to be only a dream, and the visible world only a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough if we were never deceived by it when we make good use of reason.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
	A reaction: I find this response more satisfactory than his response in Idea 12740. As a supporter of the coherence account of justification, I take the closest we get to knowledge to be when our full critical faculties and experience are brought to bear, and shared.

12740	The strongest criterion that phenomena show reality is success in prediction [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The most powerful criterion of the reality of phenomena, sufficient even by itself, is success in predicting future phenomena from past and present ones.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
	A reaction: I would say that this is clutching at straws, as there is no reason at all to deny that dreams could be thoroughly coherent and predictable in their events. We must just live with these doubts, not try to defeat them.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique

12721	Light, heat and colour are apparent qualities, and so are motion, figure and extension [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Concerning bodies I can demonstrate that not merely light, heat, color, and similar qualities are apparent but also motion, figure, and extension.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1504), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
	A reaction: Leibniz is not consistent on this. Here he is flirting with idealism, but he often backs away from that. In Discourse §12 he makes secondary qualities certainly subjective, and primary qualities possibly so. He admits the primaries contain eternal truths.

18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / b. Turing Machines

3193	Turing showed that logical rules can be specified computationally and mechanically [Turing, by Rey]
	Full Idea: Turing showed that any formal process can be specified computationally, and captured by a Turing Machine. Hence logical rules (and arithmetic) could be obeyed not by someone representing and following them, but by causal organisation of the brain.
	From: report of Alan Turing (works [1935]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 8.2
	A reaction: It is questionable whether logic is an entirely formal process, if it involves truth. You would need an entirely formal notion of truth for that. But a brain can do whatever a flow diagram can do.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles

13304	Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
	Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
	From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
	A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure

20820	Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
	Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
	From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
	A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.