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15957
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Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle]
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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.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.41?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
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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.
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15965
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Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
Boyle attacks an idea of powers, held by some modern schoolmen and chemists, that makes powers occult.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3
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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?
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16034
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Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle]
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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'.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.324), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3
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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.
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15953
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To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle]
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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.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.47?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2
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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.
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15962
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Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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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.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.2
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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.
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2427
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Maybe understanding doesn't need consciousness, despite what Searle seems to think [Searle, by Chalmers]
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Full Idea:
Searle originally directed the Chinese Room against machine intentionality rather than consciousness, arguing that it is "understanding" that the room lacks,….but on Searle's view intentionality requires consciousness.
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From:
report of John Searle (Minds, Brains and Science [1984]) by David J.Chalmers - The Conscious Mind 4.9.4
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A reaction:
I doubt whether 'understanding' is a sufficiently clear and distinct concept to support Searle's claim. Understanding comes in degrees, and we often think and act with minimal understanding.
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7390
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If bigger and bigger brain parts can't understand, how can a whole brain? [Dennett on Searle]
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Full Idea:
The argument that begins "this little bit of brain activity doesn't understand Chinese, and neither does this bigger bit..." is headed for the unwanted conclusion that even the activity of the whole brain won't account for understanding Chinese.
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From:
comment on John Searle (Minds, Brains and Science [1984]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.1
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A reaction:
In other words, Searle is guilty of a fallacy of composition (in negative form - parts don't have it, so whole can't have it). Dennett is right. The whole shebang of the full brain will obviously do wonderful (and commonplace) things brain bits can't.
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11214
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We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
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Full Idea:
The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A.
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From:
Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
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A reaction:
[compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role).
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15952
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The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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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.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.1
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