Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Instrospection' and 'Letters to Thomasius'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects

13432	The essence of a circle is the equality of its radii [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The essence of a circle consists in the equality of all lines drawn from its centre to its circumference.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669)
	A reaction: Compare Locke in Idea 13431 and Spinoza in Idea 13073 on the essence of geometrical figures. A key question is whether the essence is in the simplest definition, or in a complex and wide-ranging account, e.g. including conic sections for circles.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection

5692	Introspection is not perception, because there are no extra qualities apart from the mental events themselves [Rosenthal]
	Full Idea: Introspection cannot be a form of perceiving, since that invariably involves sensory qualities, and no qualities occur in introspection other than those of the sensations and perceptions we introspect; there are no additional qualities.
	From: David M. Rosenthal (Instrospection [1998])
	A reaction: This sounds pretty conclusive. Presumably introspection is best described as meta-thought rather than perception, which means that it involves beliefs and judgements, rather than new perceptual qualities. It has to be conceptual, and probably linguistic.

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?

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement

12696	Bodies are recreated in motion, and don't exist in intervening instants [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: I have demonstrated that whatever moves is continuously created and that bodies are nothing at any time between the instants in motion.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669.04), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1
	A reaction: Leibniz is a little over-confident about what he has 'demonstrated', but I think (from this remark) that he would not have been displeased with quantum theory, and the notion of a 'quantum leap' and a 'Planck time'. A 'conatus' is a 'smallest motion'.