Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Philosophical Fragments', 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet' and 'Things'

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5 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence

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]

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 2. Abstract Objects / c. Modern abstracta

7783	Bodies, properties, relations, events, numbers, sets and propositions are 'things' if they exist [Lowe]
	Full Idea: Not only material bodies but also properties, relations, events, numbers, sets, and propositions are—if they are acknowledged as existing—to be accounted ‘things’.
	From: E.J. Lowe (Things [1995])
	A reaction: There might be lots of borderline cases here. Is the sky a thing? Is air a thing? How is transparency a thing? Is minus-one a thing? Is an incomplete proposition a thing? Etc.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity

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]

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.