9 ideas
| 5040 | Necessary truths can be analysed into original truths; contingent truths are infinitely analysable [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Derivative truths are of two sorts: some are analysed into original truths, others admit of an infinite process of analysis. The former are necessary, the latter are contingent. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.108) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing proposal. Hume would presumably see contingent truths as being analysed until you reach 'impressions'. Analysis of necessary truths soon comes to the blinding light of what is obvious, but analysis of contingency never gets there. |
| 13159 | Only God sees contingent truths a priori [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Only God sees contingent truths a priori. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.95) | |
| A reaction: This because everything is interconnected, and the whole picture must be seen to understand a contingent truth. |
| 5039 | If non-existents are possible, their existence would replace what now exists, which cannot therefore be necessary [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If certain possibles never exist, then existing things are not always necessary; otherwise it would be impossible for other things to exist instead of them, and so all things that never exist would be impossible. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.106) | |
| A reaction: A neat argument, though it is not self-evident that when possibles came into existence they would have to replace what is already there. Can't something be possible, but only in another world, because this one is already booked? |
| 3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
| Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
| A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
| 5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
| 8120 | Objects can be beautiful which express nothing at all, such as the rainbow [Herbart, by Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Objects are often beautiful which express nothing at all, as, for instance, the rainbow, which is beautiful for its lines and colours and not for its mythological connexion with Iris, or Noah's rainbow. | |
| From: report of Johann Herbart (works [1830]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice counterexample to Tolstoy's own theory. The example is one of a natural beauty, but it would be harder to find examples in human art. How much the artist may feel, though, has little to do with the success of a work of art. |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
| A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |
| 5041 | God does everything in a perfect way, and never acts contrary to reason [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We can regard it as certain that everything is done by God in the most perfect way, that he does nothing which is contrary to reason. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Freedom [1689], p.109) | |
| A reaction: The famous optimism which Voltaire laughed at in 'Candide'. I can't help thinking that there is an ideal of God being ABOVE reason. We reason, and give reasons, because we are unsure, and life is a struggle. The highest ideal is mystically self-evident. |