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5060
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All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
What (in the analysis of substances) exist ultimately are simple substances - namely, souls, or, if you prefer a more general terms, 'monads', which are without parts.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §7)
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A reaction:
This seems to me to be atomistic panpsychism. He is opposed to physical atomism, because infinite divisibility seems obvious, but unity is claimed to be equally obvious in the world of the mental. Does this mean bricks are made of souls? Odd.
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6217
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Natural law is supplied to the human mind by reality and human nature [Cumberland]
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Full Idea:
Some truths of natural law, concerning guides to moral good and evil, and duties not laid down by civil law and government, are necessarily supplied ot the human mind by the nature of things and of men.
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From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I)
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A reaction:
I agree that some moral truths have the power of self-evidence. If you say they are built into the mind, we now ask what did the building, and evolution is the only answer, and hence we distance ourselves from the truths, seeing them as strategies.
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6221
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If there are different ultimate goods, there will be conflicting good actions, which is impossible [Cumberland]
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Full Idea:
If there be posited different ultimate ends, whose causes are opposed to each other, then there will be truly good actions likewise opposed to each other, which is impossible.
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From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.V.XVI)
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A reaction:
A very interesting argument for there being one good rather than many, and an argument which I don't recall in any surviving Greek text. A response might be to distinguish between what is 'right' and what is 'good'. See David Ross.
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6220
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The happiness of all contains the happiness of each, and promotes it [Cumberland]
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Full Idea:
The common happiness of all contains the greatest happiness for each, and most effectively promotes it. …There is no path leading anyone to his own happiness, other than the path which leads all to the common happiness.
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From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.VI)
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A reaction:
I take this as a revolutionary idea, which leads to utilitarianism. It is doing what seemed to the Greeks unthinkable, which is combining hedonism with altruism. There is no proof for it, but it is a wonderful clarion call for building a civil society.
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6216
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Natural law is immutable truth giving moral truths and duties independent of society [Cumberland]
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Full Idea:
Natural law is certain propositions of immutable truth, which guide voluntary actions about the choice of good and avoidance of evil, and which impose an obligation to act, even without regard to civil laws, and ignoring compacts of governments.
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From:
Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I)
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A reaction:
Not a popular view, but I am sympathetic. If you are in a foreign country and find a person lying in pain, there is a terrible moral deficiency in anyone who just ignores such a thing. No legislation can take away a person's right of self-defence.
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5059
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Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
In all of nature efficient causes correspond to final causes, because everything proceeds from a cause which is not only powerful, but wise; and with the rule of power through efficient causes, there is involved the rule of wisdom through final causes.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §5)
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A reaction:
Nowadays this carrot-and-stick view of causation is unfashionable, but I won't rule it out. The deepest 'why?' we can ask won't just go away. This unity by a divine mind strikes me as too simple, but Leibniz is right to try to unify Aristotelian causes.
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5994
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Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]
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Full Idea:
The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning.
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From:
report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out.
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