Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Fardella' and 'True Believers'

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
12708 The soul is not a substance but a substantial form, the first active faculty [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The soul, properly and accurately speaking, is not a substance, but a substantial form, or the primitive form existing in substances, the first act, the first active faculty.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Fardella [1690], A6.4.1670), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2
     A reaction: In all of Leibniz's many gropings towards what is at the heart of a unified object, I pounce on the phrase "the first active faculty" as the one that suits me. I take that to be a 'power'. It has two characteristics - it is active, and it is basic.
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
23803 States have content if we can predict them well by assuming intentionality [Dennett, by Schulte]
     Full Idea: Dennett maintains that a system has states with representational content if we are able to predict its behaviour reliably and voluminously by adopting the intentional stance toward it.
     From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (True Believers [1981]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 5
     A reaction: Dennett himself seems happy to thereby attribute representational content to a chess-playing computer. This sounds like a test for content, rather than explaining what it is. Not promising, I think.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
     Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.