23 ideas
| 15957 | Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle] |
| Full Idea: Essential definitions are such as are taken from the essential differences of things, which constitute them in such a sort of natural bodies, and discriminate them from all those of any other sort. | |
| From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.41?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles | |
| A reaction: I don't think this goes as far as the aim Aristotle had in definitions, which was more than merely to 'discriminate' each thing. A full definition explains the thing as well. |
| 22121 | The concept of being has only one meaning, whether talking of universals or of God [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus was the first scholastic to hold that the concept of being and other transcendentals were univocal, not only in application to substance and accidents, but even to God and creatures. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205 | |
| A reaction: So either it exists or it doesn't. No nonsense about 'subsisting'. Russell flirted with subsistence, but Quine agrees with Duns Scotus (and so do I). |
| 22122 | Being (not sensation or God) is the primary object of the intellect [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus said the primary object of the created intellect was being, rejecting Aquinas's Aristotelian view that it was limited to the quiddity of the sense particular, and Henry of Ghent's Augustinian view that it was God. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205 | |
| A reaction: I suppose the 'primary object of the intellect' is the rationalist/empiricism disagreement. So (roughly) Aquinas was an empiricist, Duns Scotus was a rationalist, and Augustine was a transcendentalist? Augustine sounds like Spinoza. |
| 15965 | Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: Boyle attacks an idea of powers, held by some modern schoolmen and chemists, that makes powers occult. | |
| From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3 | |
| A reaction: [This involves Boyle's famous example of a key having the power to turn a lock] On p.86 Alexander says the 'occult' belief is in affinities, antipathies, attractions and repulsions. How did Boyle explain magnetism? |
| 16735 | In the 17th century, 'disposition' usually just means the spatial arrangement of parts [Boyle, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In Locke and Boyle, 'disposition' and its various cognates are standardly used to refer to the corpuscular structure of a body - the spatial arrangement of its parts - without reflecting any commitment to a dispositional property. | |
| From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.2 | |
| A reaction: Here as a warning against enthusiasts for dispositional properties misreadigmg 17th century texts to their supposed advantage. Pasnau says none of them believe in dispositional properties or real powers. |
| 22125 | Duns Scotus was a realist about universals [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus was a realist on the issue of universals and one of the main adversaries of Ockham's programme of nominalism. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: The view of Scotus seems to be the minority view. It is hard to find thinkers who really believe that universals have an independent existence. My interest in Duns Scotus waned when I read this. How does he imagine universals? |
| 22127 | Scotus said a substantial principle of individuation [haecceitas] was needed for an essence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Rejecting the standard views that essences are individuated by either actual existence, quantity or matter, Scotus said that the principle of individuation is a further substantial difference added to the species - the so-called haecceitas or 'thisness'. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: [Scotus seldom referred to 'haecceitas'] I suppose essences have prior existence, but are too generic, so something must fix an essence as pertaining to this particular object. Is the haecceitas part of the essence, or of the particular? |
| 16034 | Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle] |
| Full Idea: I understand the word 'form' to mean, not a real substance distinct from matter, but only the matter itself of a natural body, with its peculiar manner of existence [corpuscular structure], which may be called its 'essential modification' or 'stamp'. | |
| From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.324), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3 | |
| A reaction: I don't think Aristotle ever thought that a form was separate from its matter, let alone qualifying as a substance. On the whole, Boyle attacks scholastic philosophy, rather than Aristotle. |
| 15953 | To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle] |
| Full Idea: If it be demanded why rhubarb purges choler, snow dazzles the eyes rather than grass etc., that these effects are performed by substantial forms of the respective bodies is at best but to tell me what is the agent, not how the effect is wrought. | |
| From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.47?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the problem of the 'virtus dormitiva' of opium (which at least tells you it was the opium what done it). I take Aristotle to have aspired to a lot more than this. He wanted a full definition, which would contain lots of information about the form. |
| 22126 | Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus endorsed Avicenna's theory of the common nature, according to which the essences have an independence and priority to their existence as either universal in the mind or singular outside it. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: I occasionally meet this weird idea in modern discussions of essence (in Lowe?), and now see its origin. It makes little sense without a divine mind to support the independent essences. Scotus had to add a principle of individuation for essences. |
| 22129 | Certainty comes from the self-evident, from induction, and from self-awareness [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus grounded certitude in the knowledge of self-evident propositions, induction, and awareness of our own state. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: Induction looks like the weak link here. |
| 22130 | Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Scotus allocated to the intellect a direct, existential awareness of the intelligible object, called 'intuitive cognition', in contrast to abstractive knowledge, which seized the object independently of its presence to the intellect in actual existence. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: Presumably if you see a thing, shut your eyes and then know it, that is 'abstractive'. Scotus says open your eyes for proper knowledge. |
| 22128 | Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Scotus rejected Henry of Ghent's defence of Augustine's of knowledge by 'illumination', as leading to nothing but scepticism. ...After this, illumination never made a serious recovery. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 |
| 15964 | Boyle's secondary qualities are not illusory, or 'in the mind' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: There is no suggestion in Boyle that secondary qualities are, unlike primary qualities, somehow illusory, subjective or 'in the mind'. | |
| From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3 | |
| A reaction: [Alexander goes on to say that his also applied to Locke] |
| 15962 | Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps Boyle's most important technical terms is 'texture'. ...It must not be confused with the way we feel the texture of a surface like sandpaper or velvet; it is rather a structure of unobservable particles and so it is not directly observable. | |
| From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the basis for Alexander's reassessment of what Boyle and Locke meant by a 'secondary quality', which, he says, is a physical feature of objects, not a mental experience. |
| 15960 | Explanation is deducing a phenomenon from some nature better known to us [Boyle] |
| Full Idea: Explicating a phenomenon is to deduce it from something else in nature more known to us than the thing to be explained by it. | |
| From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.46?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles | |
| A reaction: Interesting that the word 'deduce' is here, beloved of the 'covering law' view. But this may be deduced from the behaviour of other substances, as the iron filing behaviour may be explained by the magnet itself (or perhaps 'laws' of magnetism). |
| 22131 | The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Scotus said the will is a power for opposites, in the sense that even when actually willing one thing, it retains a real, active power to will the opposite. He detaches the idea of freedom from time and variability. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: In the sense that we can abandon an action when in the middle of it, this seems to be correct. Not just 'I could have done otherwise', but 'I don't have to be doing this'. This shows that the will has wide power, but not that it is 'free'. |
| 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. |
| 15952 | The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: In Boyle's corpuscular philosophy, all material substances are composed of minute particles or corpuscles, with ordinary properties such as shape, size and motion. There was no need for occult relations between them, such as sympathies, or even forces. | |
| From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.1 |
| 15972 | The corpuscular theory allows motion, but does not include forces between the particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: Though there is motion, the corpuscles will not be dynamic because the idea of forces between the particles or groups of them does not figure in the theory. | |
| From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the view of Locke, as well as of Boyle. I quote this because I take to it be a particular target of Leibniz's disagreement. |
| 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. |
| 22123 | The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus establishes God as first efficient cause, as ultimate final cause, and as most eminent being - his so-called 'triple primacy' - and says there is a unique nature within these primacies. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: This is the first stage of Duns Scotus's unusually complex argument for God's existence. Asserting the actual infinity of this unique being concludes his argument. |
| 22124 | We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
| Full Idea: Duns Scotus rejected the traditional argument that the infinity of God can be inferred from creation ex nihilo. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
| A reaction: He accepted the infinity of God, however, but not for this reason. I don't know why he rejected it. I suppose the rejected claim is that something has to be infinite, and if it isn't the Cosmos then that leaves God? |