23221
|
The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish]
|
|
Full Idea:
Sensitive and rational matter …makes not only the Brain, but all Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Fancy, Understanding, Memory, Remembrance, and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain.
|
|
From:
Margaret Cavendish (Philosophical Letters [1664], p.185), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
|
|
A reaction:
Judging by the date of this, and that she is a Cavendish, the influence of Hobbes must be strong, which was brave in 1664. A very strong statement of reductive physicalism, making sure that nothing is left out.
|
13097
|
Force in substance makes state follow state, and ensures the very existence of substance [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
By the force I give to substances, I understand a state from which another state follows, if nothing prevents it. ...I dare say that without force, there would be no substance.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Lelong [1712], 1712), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 7.1
|
|
A reaction:
[the whole quote is interesting] This remark, more than any other I have found, places force at the centre of Leibniz's metaphysics. He is using it to resist Spinoza's one-substance view.
|