Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reportatio', 'Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth' and 'Letters to Leibniz'

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

---

4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence

12750	The question is whether force is self-sufficient in bodies, and essential, or dependent on something [Lenfant]
	Full Idea: The whole question is to know if the force to act in bodies is in matter something distinct and independent of everything else that one conceives there. Without that, this force cannot be its essence, and will remain the result of some primitive quality.
	From: Jacques Lenfant (Letters to Leibniz [1693], 1693.11.07), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8
	A reaction: This challenge to Leibniz highlights the drama of trying to simultaneously arrive at explanations of things, and to decide the nature of essence. Leibniz replied that force is primitive, because it is the 'principle' of behaviour and dispositions.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought

18424	If two people can have phenomenally identical experiences, they can't involve the self [Brogaard]
	Full Idea: It is plausible that you and I can have perceptual experiences with the same phenomenology of two trees at different distances from us (perhaps at different times). ..So our perceptual experiences cannot contain you or me in the content of representation.
	From: Berit Brogaard (Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth [2009], p.223), quoted by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 08.2
	A reaction: If you accept the example, which seems reasonable, then that pretty conclusively shows that perception is not inherently indexical.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections

9111	God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good.
	From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii)
	A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God.

28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity

9112	We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom.
	From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii)
	A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism.