4 ideas
16007 | I assume existence, rather than reasoning towards it [Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: I always reason from existence, not towards existence. | |
From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.40) | |
A reaction: Kierkegaard's important premise to help show that theistic proofs for God's existence don't actually prove existence, but develop the content of a conception. [SY] |
16013 | Nothing necessary can come into existence, since it already 'is' [Kierkegaard] |
Full Idea: Can the necessary come into existence? That is a change, and everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary. The necessary already 'is'. | |
From: Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophical Fragments [1844], p.74) | |
A reaction: [SY] |
6570 | Imagine millions made happy on condition that one person suffers endless lonely torture [James] |
Full Idea: Consider a case in which millions could be made permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture. | |
From: William James (The Will to Believe [1896], p.188), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be one of the earliest pinpointings of a key problem with utilitiarianism, which is that other values than happiness (in this case, fairness) seem to be utterly overruled. If we ignore fairness, why shouldn't we ignore happiness? |
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. |