14 ideas
| 4187 | 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The Principle may be stated as 'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be', which is a generalisation of the assumption which justifies the question 'Why?', which is the mother of all science. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], Ch.I) | |
| A reaction: This faith is the core of philosophy, to be maintained against all defeatists like Wittgenstein and Colin McGinn. Reality must be rational, or we wouldn't be here to think about it. (Maybe!) |
| 15959 | If the substantial form of brass implies its stability, how can it melt and remain brass? [Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: If we account for the stability of a piece of brass by reference to the substantial form of brass, then it is mysterious how it can be melted and yet remain brass. | |
| From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: [Alexander is discussing Boyle] |
| 15956 | The peripatetics treated forms and real qualities as independent of matter, and non-material [Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: The peripatetic philosophers, in spite of their disagreements, all treated forms and real qualities as independent of matter and not to be understood in material terms. | |
| From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 54) | |
| A reaction: This is the simple reason why hylomorphism became totally discredited, in the face of the 'mechanical philosophy'. But there must be a physical version of hylomorphism, and I don't think Aristotle himself would reject it. |
| 4192 | All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Necessity has no meaning other than the irresistible sequence of the effect where the cause is given. All necessity is thus conditioned, and absolute or unconditioned necessity is a contradiction in terms. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], Ch.VIII) | |
| A reaction: I.e. there is only natural necessity, and no such thing as metaphysical necessity. But what about logical necessity(e.g. 2+3=5)? I think there may be metaphysical necessity, but we can't know much about it, and we are over-confident in assessing it. |
| 4190 | All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], Ch.IV) | |
| A reaction: Based, I take it, on Hume. Presumably he means a posteriori understanding, as it hardly fits an understanding of arithmetic. Understanding needs more than just causation. What aspects of causation? |
| 15975 | Can the qualities of a body be split into two groups, where the smaller explains the larger? [Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: Is there any way of separating the qualities that bodies appear to have into two groups, one as small as possible and the other as large as possible, such that the smaller group can plausibly be used to explain the larger? | |
| From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 5.02) | |
| A reaction: Alexander implies that this is a question Locke asked himself. This is pretty close to what I take to be the main question for essentialism, though I am cautious about couching it in terms of groups of qualities. I think this was Aristotle's question. |
| 4191 | What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: What we know in ourselves is never what knows, but what wills, the will. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], Ch.VII) | |
| A reaction: An interesting slant on Hume's scepticism about personal identity. Hume was hunting for a thing-which-experiences. If he had sought his will, he might have spotted it. |
| 21368 | The knot of the world is the use of 'I' to refer to both willing and knowing [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The identity of the subject of willing with that of knowing by virtue whereof ...the word 'I' includes and indicates both, is the knot of the world, and hence inexplicable. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], p.211-2), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 4 'Self' | |
| A reaction: I'm struggling to see this as a deep mystery. If we look objectively at animals and ask 'what is their brain for?' the answer seems obvious. This may be a case of everything looking mysterious after a philosopher has stared at it for a while. |
| 15963 | Science has been partly motivated by the belief that the universe is run by God's laws [Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a designed universe has not been utterly irrelevant to the scientific project; it is one of the beliefs that can give a scientist the faith that there are laws, waiting to be discovered, that govern all phenomena. | |
| From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Of course if you start out looking for the 'laws of God' that is probably what you will discover. Natural selection strikes me as significant, because it shows no sign of being a procedure appropriate to a benevolent god. |
| 15951 | Alchemists tried to separate out essences, which influenced later chemistry [Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: The alchemists sought the separation of the 'pure essences' of substances from unwanted impurities. This last goal was of great importance for the development of modern chemistry at the hands of Boyle and his successors. | |
| From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: In a nutshell this gives us the reason why essences are so important, and also why they became discredited. Time for a clear modern rethink. |
| 15981 | Absolute space either provides locations, or exists but lacks 'marks' for locations [Alexander,P] |
| Full Idea: There are two conceptions of absolute space. In the first, empty space is independent of objects but provides a frame of reference so an object has a location. ..In the second space exists independently, but has no 'marks' into which objects can be put. | |
| From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 6) | |
| A reaction: He says that Locke seems to reject the first one, but accept the second one. |
| 4189 | Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root' [1813], Ch.IV) | |
| A reaction: An off-beat philosophical view of the question. Sounds more like a consequence of time than its essential nature. |
| 16713 | Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics [Tertullian] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers are the forefathers of heretics. | |
| From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.2 |
| 6610 | I believe because it is absurd [Tertullian] |
| Full Idea: I believe because it is absurd ('Credo quia absurdum est'). | |
| From: Tertullian (works [c.200]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a rather desperate remark, in response to what must have been rather good hostile arguments. No one would abandon the support of reason if it was easy to acquire. You can't deny its engaging romantic defiance, though. |