Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Abstract Objects: a Case Study', 'The Origin of Forms and Qualities' and 'What is an Idea?'

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

---

15 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition

15957	Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle]
	Full Idea: Essential definitions are such as are taken from the essential differences of things, which constitute them in such a sort of natural bodies, and discriminate them from all those of any other sort.
	From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.41?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
	A reaction: I don't think this goes as far as the aim Aristotle had in definitions, which was more than merely to 'discriminate' each thing. A full definition explains the thing as well.

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / c. Neo-logicism

10580	Mathematics is both necessary and a priori because it really consists of logical truths [Yablo]
	Full Idea: Mathematics seems necessary because the real contents of mathematical statements are logical truths, which are necessary, and it seems a priori because logical truths really are a priori.
	From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 10)
	A reaction: Yablo says his logicism has a Kantian strain, because numbers and sets 'inscribed on our spectacles', but he takes a different view (in the present Idea) from Kant about where the necessity resides. Personally I am tempted by an a posteriori necessity.

6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 9. Fictional Mathematics

10579	Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo]
	Full Idea: Saying 'the number of Fs is 5', instead of using five quantifiers, puts the numeral in quantifiable position, which brings expressive advantages. 'There are more sheep in the field than cows' is an infinite disjunction, expressible in finite compass.
	From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 08)
	A reaction: See Hofweber with similar thoughts. This idea I take to be a key one in explaining many metaphysical confusions. The human mind just has a strong tendency to objectify properties, relations, qualities, categories etc. - for expression and for reasoning.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete

10577	Concrete objects have few essential properties, but properties of abstractions are mostly essential [Yablo]
	Full Idea: Objects like me have a few essential properties, and numerous accidental ones. Abstract objects are a different story. The intrinsic properties of the empty set are mostly essential. The relations of numbers are also mostly essential.
	From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 01)

10578	We are thought to know concreta a posteriori, and many abstracta a priori [Yablo]
	Full Idea: Our knowledge of concreta is a posteriori, but our knowledge of numbers, at least, has often been considered a priori.
	From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 02)

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers

15965	Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
	Full Idea: Boyle attacks an idea of powers, held by some modern schoolmen and chemists, that makes powers occult.
	From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3
	A reaction: [This involves Boyle's famous example of a key having the power to turn a lock] On p.86 Alexander says the 'occult' belief is in affinities, antipathies, attractions and repulsions. How did Boyle explain magnetism?

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions

16735	In the 17th century, 'disposition' usually just means the spatial arrangement of parts [Boyle, by Pasnau]
	Full Idea: In Locke and Boyle, 'disposition' and its various cognates are standardly used to refer to the corpuscular structure of a body - the spatial arrangement of its parts - without reflecting any commitment to a dispositional property.
	From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.2
	A reaction: Here as a warning against enthusiasts for dispositional properties misreadigmg 17th century texts to their supposed advantage. Pasnau says none of them believe in dispositional properties or real powers.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism

16034	Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle]
	Full Idea: I understand the word 'form' to mean, not a real substance distinct from matter, but only the matter itself of a natural body, with its peculiar manner of existence [corpuscular structure], which may be called its 'essential modification' or 'stamp'.
	From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.324), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3
	A reaction: I don't think Aristotle ever thought that a form was separate from its matter, let alone qualifying as a substance. On the whole, Boyle attacks scholastic philosophy, rather than Aristotle.

15953	To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle]
	Full Idea: If it be demanded why rhubarb purges choler, snow dazzles the eyes rather than grass etc., that these effects are performed by substantial forms of the respective bodies is at best but to tell me what is the agent, not how the effect is wrought.
	From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.47?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2
	A reaction: This is the problem of the 'virtus dormitiva' of opium (which at least tells you it was the opium what done it). I take Aristotle to have aspired to a lot more than this. He wanted a full definition, which would contain lots of information about the form.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities

15964	Boyle's secondary qualities are not illusory, or 'in the mind' [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
	Full Idea: There is no suggestion in Boyle that secondary qualities are, unlike primary qualities, somehow illusory, subjective or 'in the mind'.
	From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3
	A reaction: [Alexander goes on to say that his also applied to Locke]

15962	Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
	Full Idea: Perhaps Boyle's most important technical terms is 'texture'. ...It must not be confused with the way we feel the texture of a surface like sandpaper or velvet; it is rather a structure of unobservable particles and so it is not directly observable.
	From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.2
	A reaction: This is the basis for Alexander's reassessment of what Boyle and Locke meant by a 'secondary quality', which, he says, is a physical feature of objects, not a mental experience.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism

15960	Explanation is deducing a phenomenon from some nature better known to us [Boyle]
	Full Idea: Explicating a phenomenon is to deduce it from something else in nature more known to us than the thing to be explained by it.
	From: Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.46?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
	A reaction: Interesting that the word 'deduce' is here, beloved of the 'covering law' view. But this may be deduced from the behaviour of other substances, as the iron filing behaviour may be explained by the magnet itself (or perhaps 'laws' of magnetism).

18. Thought / C. Content / 2. Ideas

19423	By an 'idea' I mean not an actual thought, but the resources we can draw on to think [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: What I mean by an idea is not a certain act of thinking, but a power or faculty such that we have an idea of a thing even if we are not thinking about it but know that we can think it when the occasion arises.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (What is an Idea? [1676], p.281)
	A reaction: 'Idea' tends to be used in the seventeenth century to mean an actual mental event. It is because Leibniz believes in the unconscious mind that he can offer this rather different, and probably superior, notion of an 'idea'.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism

15952	The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
	Full Idea: In Boyle's corpuscular philosophy, all material substances are composed of minute particles or corpuscles, with ordinary properties such as shape, size and motion. There was no need for occult relations between them, such as sympathies, or even forces.
	From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.1

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / b. Corpuscles

15972	The corpuscular theory allows motion, but does not include forces between the particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
	Full Idea: Though there is motion, the corpuscles will not be dynamic because the idea of forces between the particles or groups of them does not figure in the theory.
	From: report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 5.2
	A reaction: This is the view of Locke, as well as of Boyle. I quote this because I take to it be a particular target of Leibniz's disagreement.