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All the ideas for 'Opus Maius (major works)', 'Letters to Leibniz' and 'On Cruelty'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought

23122	Montaigne was the founding father of liberalism [Montaigne, by Gopnik]
	Full Idea: The first liberal, the founding father if we have one, is the great sixteenth century French essayist Michel de Montaigne.
	From: report of Michel de Montaigne (On Cruelty [1580]) by Adam Gopnik - A Thousand Small Sanities 1
	A reaction: He says this not on the basis of his politicies or achievements, but his general attitudes and values. It may be another hundred years before we can identify another obvious liberal (Locke?).

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence

12750	The question is whether force is self-sufficient in bodies, and essential, or dependent on something [Lenfant]
	Full Idea: The whole question is to know if the force to act in bodies is in matter something distinct and independent of everything else that one conceives there. Without that, this force cannot be its essence, and will remain the result of some primitive quality.
	From: Jacques Lenfant (Letters to Leibniz [1693], 1693.11.07), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8
	A reaction: This challenge to Leibniz highlights the drama of trying to simultaneously arrive at explanations of things, and to decide the nature of essence. Leibniz replied that force is primitive, because it is the 'principle' of behaviour and dispositions.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / d. Knowing essences

16745	No one even knows the nature and properties of a fly - why it has that colour, or so many feet [Bacon,R]
	Full Idea: No one is so wise regarding the natural world as to know with certainty all the truths that concern the nature and properties of a single fly, or to know the proper causes of its color and why it has so many feet, neither more nor less.
	From: Roger Bacon (Opus Maius (major works) [1254], I.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
	A reaction: Pasnau quotes this in the context of 'occult' qualities. It is scientific essentialism, because Bacon clearly takes it that the explanation of these things would be found within the essence of the fly, if we could only get at it.