17 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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] |
| 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). |
| 22480 | Possessing the virtue of justice disposes a person to good practical rationality [Foot] |
| Full Idea: If justice is a virtue it must make action good by disposing its possessor to goodness in practical rationality; the latter consisting of the right recognition of reasons, and corresponding action. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.174) | |
| A reaction: This somewhat inverts Aristotle, who says the possessing of good practical reason is the key to acquiring the virtues. Foot suggests that possessing the virtue promotes the practical rationality. Someone can be sensible without being virtuous. |
| 22477 | Calling a knife or farmer or speech or root good does not involve attitudes or feelings [Foot] |
| Full Idea: No one thinks that calling a knife a good knife, a farmer a good farmer, a speech a good speech, a root a good root, necessarily expresses or even involves an attitude or feeling towards it. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.163) | |
| A reaction: This is the Aristotelian idea (which I favour) that good derives from function. In such a case it seems obvious that it has nothing to do with expressing emotions. |
| 22478 | The essential thing is the 'needs' of plants and animals, and their operative parts [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The key notion is the concept of need, …as when we say what a plant or animal of a certain species needs to have, …and what its operative features, such roots, leaves, hearts and lungs, need to do. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.164) | |
| A reaction: Good. That takes it away from the idea of a function, which could be possessed by an inanimate machine (even though that still entails success and failure). Strictly, we need oxygen, but the goodness resides in the lungs. |
| 22479 | Observing justice is necessary to humans, like hunting to wolves or dancing to bees [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The teaching and observing of the rules of justice is as necessary a part of the life of human beings as hunting together in packs with a leader is a necessary part of the lives of wolves, or dancing part of the life of the dancing bee. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.168) | |
| A reaction: So why are some men unjust? All wolves hunt, and all appropriate bees dance. A few men even thrive on injustice. |
| 23104 | Dworkin believed we should promote equality, to increase autonomy [Dworkin, by Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Egalitarians believe that most often it is by promoting equality that autonomy is increased; this is the egalitarianism of such liberals as Ronald Dworkin. | |
| From: report of Ronald Dworkin (Taking Rights Seriously [1977]) by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 05.1 | |
| A reaction: Not my idea of equality. The whole point is to ascribe reasonable equality to everyone, including those with a limited capacity for autonomy. Equality is a consequence of universal respect. |
| 23257 | We can treat people as equals, or actually treat them equally [Dworkin, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Dworkin distinguishes between treating people as equals, that is, 'with equal concern and respect', and treating them equally. This latter can be unjust. | |
| From: report of Ronald Dworkin (Taking Rights Seriously [1977]) by A.C. Grayling - The Good State 2 | |
| A reaction: The big difference I see between them is that the first is mere words, and the second is actions. Cf. 'thoughts and prayers' after US school shootings. How about equal entitlements, all things being equal? |
| 18621 | Treating people as equals is the one basic value of all plausible political theories [Dworkin, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Dworkin suggests that every plausible political theory has the same ultimate value, which is equality - in the more abstract and fundamental sense of treating people 'as equals'. | |
| From: report of Ronald Dworkin (Taking Rights Seriously [1977], 179-83) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) | |
| A reaction: I associate this idea with Kant (who says they are equal by virtue of their rationality), so that's a pretty influential idea. I would associate the main challenge to this with Nietzsche. |
| 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. |