"Idea" as a Philosophical Term in the Seventeenth Century

McRae, Robert

doi:10.2307/2708226

Cited by 96 publications

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“…2 Robert McRae gives an overview of these developments starting with Descartes in his article "'Idea' as a Philosophical Term in the Seventeenth Century." (McRae, 1965) Nicholas Jolley covers the same territory more thoroughly in The Light of the Soul (Jolley, 1990). Both of these sources have been very helpful in formulating the issues in this paper.…”

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Ideas and Self-Reflection in Leibniz

Perkins¹

1999

Leibniz Society Review

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T he term "idea" in the seventeenth century is notoriously difficult. Not only does each major thinker have their own understanding of "idea"-many of those thinkers themselves move ambiguously between different meanings. This confusion is generally attributed to Descartes. While ideas had only existed in the mind of God, Descartes consciously made new use of the term by applying it to things in human minds. At the same time, Descartes left many questions about what an idea is. Given Descartes' own ambiguity, the various doctrines of ideas developed by Arnauld, Malebranche, Locke, Spinoza and Leibniz, all have some legitimate claim as interpretations of Descartes. 2 Compared with these Cartesian ambiguities, Leibniz' doctrine of ideas appears relatively clear. Leibniz wrote several short but explicit accounts of ideas, and the "Discourse on Metaphysics" and the New Essays have significant discussion of ideas as well. 3 Because of these explicit accounts, Leibniz' theory of ideas is usually given unproblematically as one of "dispositions" or "faculties," as if this were a sufficient account of ideas. Clearly such an account is not sufficient, unless accompanied by some account of what dispositions are for Leibniz, and the existence of dispositions in a monad presents difficulties. In a similar way, the connection between innate ideas, reflection, and necessary truths is often taken as unproblematic. Nicholas Jolley, however, particularly emphasizes the difficulties involved in Leibniz' account of this connection. 4 In this paper, I will first examine what an idea is for Leibniz, and then use this account to explain Leibniz' doctrine of self-reflection. In both cases, I will focus on the relationship between his theory of ideas and the rest of his philosophical system. What Leibniz says about ideas is fairly clear-the difficulty is detennining what he means and how his claims fit with his conception of monads. In order to address these latter difficulties, I will begin by examining three broader factors in Leibniz' theory of ideas. II 1) Thinking of a thing does not necessarily mean having an idea (Jf that thing. In the "Discourse on Metaphysics," Leibniz makes a distinction between notions or concepts, and ideas: "Thus, the expressions in our soul, whether we conceive them or not, can be called ideas, but those we conceive or form can be notions,

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“…p 245-46. 8McRae (1965), p 175. 9 Hans Burkhardt also begins with Descartes, dividing Descartes' use of ideas into two kinds.…”

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Ideas and Self-Reflection in Leibniz

Perkins¹

1999

Leibniz Society Review

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“…7 7 For an overview of the different ways that ‘ideas’ were construed by the Early Moderns, see McRae, 1965. …”

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Mind‐Body Commerce: Occasional Causation and Mental Representation in Anton Wilhelm Amo

West

2022

Philosophy Compass

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This paper contributes to a growing body of literature focusing on Anton Wilhelm Amo's account of the mind-body relation. The first aim of this paper is to provide an overview of that literature, bringing together several interpretations of Amo's account of the mind-body relation and providing a comprehensive overview of where the debate stands so far. Doing so reveals that commentary is split between those who take Amo to adopt a Leibnizian account of pre-established harmony between mind and body and those who argue that Amo adopts a theory of occasional causation. Both views deny that the body is the efficient cause of the mind's ideas but while the Leibnizian account holds that ideas exist innately in the mind, the occasional causation account maintains that the body is their occasional cause. That is, on this reading of Amo, sensations in the body are the 'occasion' on which the mind efficiently causes its own ideas. The second aim of this paper -which promises to take this interpretative debate in a new direction -is to demonstrate that we should in fact attribute to Amo a specific version of occasional causation known as 'concurrentism'. Concurrentism is the view that, while the mind does efficiently cause its own ideas, it can only do so with the assistance (or 'concurrence') of God. In other words, on this view, God makes possible the efficient causal activity of the human mind in generating ideas, in response to 'occasions' in the body.

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“…1 1 Beginning with Descartes, the term “idea” was used to refer, among many other things, to concepts, often located in the human understanding. For the different senses of “idea” in early modern philosophy see McRae (1965) and Perler (2010); for the variety of uses in Locke see Ryle (1968 [2009], p. 134). For the notion of parthood as applied to ideas in Locke and suggestions on how it is connected with the different senses of “idea,” see Stuart (2010).…”

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Leibniz and Bolzano on conceptual containment

Claas

2021

European J of Philosophy

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Philosophers often rely on the notion of conceptual containment and apply mereological terminology when they talk about the parts or constituents of a complex concept. In this paper, I explore two historical approaches to this general notion. In particular, I reconstruct objections Bernard Bolzano puts forward against a criterion that played a prominent role in the history of philosophy and that was endorsed, among others, by Leibniz. According to this criterion, a concept that represents objects contains all and only the concepts that represent properties the objects must have in order to be represented by the former concept. Bolzano offers several counterexamples and arguments against the criterion. I argue that while some of them presuppose a strongly mereological understanding of containment, which Leibniz is not committed to, one of them also succeeds without relying on demanding mereological principles.

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"Idea" as a Philosophical Term in the Seventeenth Century

Cited by 96 publications

References 0 publications

Ideas and Self-Reflection in Leibniz

Ideas and Self-Reflection in Leibniz

Mind‐Body Commerce: Occasional Causation and Mental Representation in Anton Wilhelm Amo

Leibniz and Bolzano on conceptual containment

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