16744
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All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
There are no powers in stones and plants that are not so mysterious that they cannot be explained …from principles that are known to all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size, position, and motion of particles of matter.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], IV.187), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
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A reaction:
This is an invocation of 'categorical' properties, against dispositions. I take this to be quite wrong. The explanation goes the other way. What supports the structures; what drives the motion; what initiates anything?
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5016
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Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
The five commonly enumerated universals are: genus, species, difference, property and accident.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59)
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A reaction:
Interestingly, this seems to be Descartes passing on his medieval Aristotelian inheritance, in which things are defined by placing them in a class, and then noting what distinguishes them within that class.
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16633
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A substance has one principal property which is its nature and essence [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
Each substance has one principal property that constitutes its nature and essence, to which all its other properties are referred. Extension in length, breadth, and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought of thinking substances.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.3
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A reaction:
Property is likely to be 'propria', which is a property distinctive of some thing, not just any old modern property. This is quite a strikingly original view of the nature of essence. Descartes despised 'substantial forms'.
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5005
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I think, therefore I am, because for a thinking thing to not exist is a contradiction [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
There is a contradiction in conceiving that what thinks does not (at the same time as it thinks) exist. Hence this conclusion I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophises in an orderly way.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.07)
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A reaction:
The classic statement of his argument. The significance here is that it seems to have the structure of an argument, as it involves 'philosophising', which leads to a 'contradiction', and hence to the famous conclusion. It is not just intuitive.
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5006
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'Thought' is all our conscious awareness, including feeling as well as understanding [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
By the word 'thought' I understand everything we are conscious of as operating in us. And that is why not only understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are here the same thing as thinking.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.09)
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A reaction:
There is a bit of tension here between Descartes' correct need to include feeling in thought for his Cogito argument, and his tendency to dismiss animal consciousness, on the grounds that they only sense things, and don't make judgements.
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5012
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'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
The proposition 'nothing comes from nothing' is not to be considered as an existing thing, or the mode of a thing, but as a certain eternal truth which has its seat in our mind and is a common notion or axiom.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.49)
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A reaction:
There is a tension here, in his assertion that it is 'eternal', but 'not existing'. How does one distinguish an innate idea from an innate truth? 'Eternal' sounds like an external guarantee of truth, but being 'in our mind' sounds less reliable.
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5004
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We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
It is on the Principles, or first causes, that the knowledge of other things depends, so the Principles can be known without these last, but the other things cannot reciprocally be known without the Principles.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref)
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A reaction:
A particularly strong assertion of foundationalism, as it says that not only must the foundations exist, but also we must actually know them. This sounds false, as elementary knowledge then seems to require far too much sophistication.
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2748
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A true belief isn't knowledge if it would be believed even if false. It should 'track the truth' [Nozick, by Dancy,J]
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Full Idea:
Nozick says Gettier cases aren't knowledge because the proposition would be believed even if false. Proper justification must be more sensitive to the truth ("track the truth").
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From:
report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981], 3.1) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 3.1
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A reaction:
This is a bad idea. I see a genuine tree in my garden and believe it is there, so I know it. That I might have believed it if I was in virtually reality, or observing a mirror, won't alter that.
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5011
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There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
I observe two ultimate classes of things: intellectual or thinking things, pertaining to the mind or to thinking substance, and material things, pertaining to extended substance or to body.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.48)
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A reaction:
This is clear confirmation that Descartes believed the mind is a substance, rather than an insubstantial world of thinking. It leaves open the possibility of a different theory: that mind is not a substance, but is a Platonic adjunct to reality.
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5018
|
Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
Even if we suppose God had united a body and a soul so closely that they couldn't be closer, and made a single thing out of the two, they would still remain distinct, because God has the power of separating them, or conserving out without the other.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60)
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A reaction:
If Descartes lost his belief in God (after discussing existence with Kant) would he cease to be a dualist? This quotation seems to be close to conceding a mind-body relationship more like supervenience than interaction.
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5008
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The greatest perfection of man is to act by free will, and thus merit praise or blame [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
That the will should extend widely accords with its nature, and it is the greatest perfection in man to be able to act by its means, that is, freely, and by so doing we are in peculiar way masters of our actions, and thereby merit praise or blame.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37)
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A reaction:
This seems to me to be a deep-rooted and false understanding which philosophy has inherited from theology. It doesn't strike me that there must an absolute 'buck-stop' to make us responsible. Why is it better for a decision to appear out of nowhere?
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21099
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People must have agreed to authority, because they are naturally equal, prior to education [Hume]
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Full Idea:
When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education, ...then nothing but their own consent could at first associate them together, and subject them to authority.
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.276)
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A reaction:
This doesn't sound very convincing. Some people are much better suited than others to training and education. Men vary enormously in size.
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20495
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We no more give 'tacit assent' to the state than a passenger carried on board a ship while asleep [Hume]
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Full Idea:
[If we give 'tacit' assent to the state] ...we may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master, though he was carried aboard while asleep.
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.283)
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A reaction:
We should probably drop the whole idea that we give assent to the state. We are stuck with a state, and a few of us can escape, if it seems important enough, but most of us have no choice. He hope to assent to the controllers of the state.
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6703
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Poor people lack the knowledge or wealth to move to a different state [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages that he acquires?
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.283)
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A reaction:
Of course, in the nineteenth century the Scottish poor did, going to America, which welcomed the poor, and spoke English. Hume's point is the right reply to anyone who says 'If you don't like it, go elsewhere'. Also 'No! Change it!'
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21102
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We all know that the history of property is founded on injustices [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Reason tells us that there is no property in durable objects, such as land or houses, when carefully examined in passing from hand to hand, but must, in some period, have been founded on fraud and injustice.
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.288)
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A reaction:
A prime objection to Nozick, who fantasises about an initial position of just ownership, which can then be the subject of just contracts. In 1866 thousands of white people were granted land in the USA, but not a single black freed slave got anything.
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15987
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Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
I do not accept or desire any other principle in physics than in geometry or abstract mathematics, because all the phenomena of nature may be explained by their means, and sure demonstrations can be given of them.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.64), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 7
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A reaction:
This is his famous and rather extreme view, which might be described as hyper-pythagoreanism (by adding geometry to numbers). It seems to leave out matter, forces and activity.
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16601
|
Matter is not hard, heavy or coloured, but merely extended in space [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
The nature of matter, or body viewed as a whole, consists not in its being something which is hard, heavy, or colored, or which in any other way affects the senses, but only in its being a thing extended in length, breadth and depth.
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From:
René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 04.5
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