Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Human Freedom and Divine choice' and 'Between Facts and Norms'

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7 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
6806 Do not multiply entities beyond necessity [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.
     From: William of Ockham (works [1335])
     A reaction: This is the classic statement of Ockham's Razor, though it is not found in his printed works. It appears to be mainly aimed at Plato's Theory of Forms. It is taken to refer to types of entities, not numbers. One seraph is as bad as a hundred.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 5. Universals as Concepts
22132 Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: In his mature nominalism, species and genera are identified with certain mental qualities called concepts or intentions of the mind. Ontologically they are individuals too, like everthing else, ...but they naturally signify many different individuals.
     From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - William of Ockham p.1056
     A reaction: 'Naturally' is the key word, because the concepts are not fictions, but natural responses to encountering individuals in the world. I am an Ockhamist.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13083 The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Of the essence of a particular thing is what pertains to it necessarily and perpetually; of the concept of an individual thing on the other hand is what pertains to it contingently or per accidens.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Human Freedom and Divine choice [1690], Grua 383), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1
     A reaction: This arbitrates on the apparent conflict between his remarks in Idea 13077 and Idea 10382. There seems to be a distinction between the 'concept' of a thing, and the 'complete concept', the latter including the contingent properties.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
15672 Actions norms are only valid if everyone possibly affected is involved in the discourse [Habermas]
     Full Idea: Only those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourse.
     From: Jürgen Habermas (Between Facts and Norms [1996], p.107), quoted by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.6:79
     A reaction: This remark stands somewhere between Kant and Rawls. The Holocaust stands behind Habermas's philosophy. The thought, I suppose, is that it would never have happened if everybody had been fully involved in the original discourse about it.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / i. Denying time
19381 The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Time is composed of non-entities, because it is composed of the past which does not exist now, although it did exist, and of the future, which does not yet exist; therefore time does not exist.
     From: William of Ockham (works [1335], 6:496), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist'
     A reaction: I've a lot of sympathy with this! I favour Presentism, so the past is gone and the future is yet to arrive. But we have no coherent concept of a present moment of any duration to contain reality. We are just completely bogglificated by it all.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
8010 William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: The most notable philosopher who makes God's commandment the basis of goodness, rather than God's goodness a reason for obeying him, is William of Occam.
     From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.9
     A reaction: Either view has problems. Why choose God to obey? Obey anyone who is powerful? But how do you decide that God is good? How do we know the nature of God's commands, or the nature of God's goodness? Etc.
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / c. Angels
16679 Even an angel must have some location [William of Ockham, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: Ockham dismisses the possibility of non-location out of hand, remarking that even an angel has some location.
     From: report of William of Ockham (works [1335]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.4