Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Blijenburgh' and 'Letters to Jacques Lenfant'

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic

12723	The most primitive thing in substances is force, which leads to their actions and dispositions [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Since everything that one conceives in substances reduces to their actions and passions and to the dispositions that they have for this effect, I don't see how one can find there anything more primitive than the principle of all of this, which is force.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Jacques Lenfant [1693], 1693.11.25), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
	A reaction: This is an attempt to connect Aristotelian essentialism with the notion of force in the new physics, and strikes me as an improvement on the original, and as good a basis for metaphysics as any I have heard of.

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

468	Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
	Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
	From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?

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

7829	God no more has human perfections than we have animal perfections [Spinoza]
	Full Idea: To ascribe to God those attributes which make a man perfect would be as wrong as to ascribe to a man the attributes that make perfect an elephant or an ass.
	From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Blijenburgh [1665], 1665), quoted by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.10
	A reaction: This would be a difficulty for Aquinas's Fourth Way (Idea 1432), and one which I think Aquinas might acknowledge, given his desire that we should be humble when trying to comprehend God (Idea 1410). It leaves us struggling to grasp the concept of God.

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

7830	A talking triangle would say God is triangular [Spinoza]
	Full Idea: If a triangle could speak it would say that God is eminently triangular.
	From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Blijenburgh [1665], 1665), quoted by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.10
	A reaction: Spinoza had a rather appealing waspish wit. This nicely dramatises an ancient idea (Idea 407). You can, of course, if you believe in God, infer some of His characteristics from His creation. But then see Hume: Ideas 1439, 6960, 6967, 1440.