2171
|
The 'will' doesn't exist; there is just conclusion, then action [Homer, by Williams,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
Homer left out another mental action lying between coming to a conclusion and acting on it; and he did well, since there is no such action, and the idea is the invention of bad philosophy.
|
|
From:
report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.37
|
|
A reaction:
This is a characteristically empiricist view, which is found in Hobbes. The 'will' seems to have a useful role in folk psychology. We can at least say that coming to a conclusion that I should act, and then actually acting, are not the same thing.
|
21819
|
Plato says the Good produces the Intellectual-Principle, which in turn produces the Soul [Homer, by Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
In Plato the order of generation is from the Good, the Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul.
|
|
From:
report of Homer (The Iliad [c.850 BCE], 509b) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
|
|
A reaction:
The doctrine of Plotinus merely echoes Plato, in that case, except that the One replaces the Form of the Good. Does this mean that what is first in Plotinus is less morally significant, and more concerned with reason and being?
|
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.
|