Combining Texts

All the ideas for '04: Gospel of St John', 'Dispositional Essentialism and the Laws of Nature' and 'Letters to Pierre Bayle'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos

6294	In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God [John]
	Full Idea: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.
	From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 01.01)
	A reaction: 'Word' translates the Greek word 'logos', which has come a long way since Heraclitus. The interesting contrast is with the later Platonist view that the essence of God is the Good. So is the source of everything to be found in reason, or in value?

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth

8821	Jesus said he bore witness to the truth. Pilate asked, What is truth? [John]
	Full Idea: Jesus: I came into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Everyone that is of the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is truth?
	From: St John (04: Gospel of St John [c.95], 18:37-8)
	A reaction: There is very little explicit discussion of truth in philosophy before this exchange (apart from Ideas 251 and 586), and there isn't any real debate prior to Russell and the pragmatists. What was Pilate's tone? Did he spit at the end of his question?

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will

19413	If we know what is good or rational, our knowledge is extended, and our free will restricted [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The more perfect one is, the more one is determined to the good, and so is more free at the same time. ...Our power and knowledge are more extended, and our will much the more limited within the bounds of perfect reason.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Pierre Bayle [1702], 1702)
	A reaction: I like this idea, which seems to me to derive from Aquinas. When I choose to eat and drink each day, or agree that 7+5 is 12, I don't complain about my lack of freedom in the choices. Goodness and reason are constraints I welcome.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws

17993	Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain [Vetter]
	Full Idea: The laws of a domain are the fundamental, general explanatory relationships between kinds, quantities, and qualities of that domain, that supervene upon the essential natures of those things.
	From: Barbara Vetter (Dispositional Essentialism and the Laws of Nature [2012], 9.3)
	A reaction: Hm. How small can the domain be? Can it embrace the multiverse? Supervenience is a rather weak relationship. How about 'are necessitated/entailed by'? Are the relationships supposed to do the explaining? I would have thought the natures did that.