3 ideas
| 12735 | Everything has a fixed power, as required by God, and by the possibility of reasoning [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It follows from the nature of God that there is a fixed power of a definite magnitude [non vagam] in anything whatsoever, otherwise there would be no reasonings about those things. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (De aequopollentia causae et effectus [1679], A6.4.1964), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6 | |
| A reaction: This is double-edged. On the one hand there is the grand claim that the principle derives from divine nature, but on the other it derives from our capacity to reason and explain. No one doubts that powers are 'fixed'. |
| 604 | Knowledge is mind and knowing 'cohabiting' [Lycophron, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Lycophron has it that knowledge is the 'cohabitation' (rather than participation or synthesis) of knowing and the soul. | |
| From: report of Lycophron (fragments/reports [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1045b | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a rather passive and inert relationship. Presumably knowing something implies the possibility of acting on it. |
| 16383 | Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke] |
| Full Idea: In Kripke's puzzle about belief, the subject has two distinct mental files about one and the same object. | |
| From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (A Puzzle about Belief [1979]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 17.1 | |
| A reaction: [Pierre distinguishes 'London' from 'Londres'] The Kripkean puzzle is presented as very deep, but I have always felt there was a simple explanation, and I suspect that this is it (though I will leave the reader to think it through, as I'm very busy…). |