Sublime

Leibniz, in his private thinking, is the best example of a philosopher who uses logic as a key to metaphysics. This type of philosophy begins with Parmenides, and is carried further in Plato’s use of the theory of ideas to prove various extra-logical propositions. Spinoza belongs to the same type, and so does Hegel. But none of these is so clear cu

Gödel’s own theorems were a case in point:

Augustine thought that words stood for things in the world: point to the thing, and you get the meaning of the word. This is a code-like view: there is a one-to-one correspondence between the symbol and the object or idea,

Logic presumes a separation of subject from object; therefore logic is not final wisdom. The illusion of separation of subject from object is best removed by the elimination of physical activity, mental activity and emotional activity.

Duns Scotus held that, since there is no difference between being and essence, the “principle of individuation”—i.e., that which makes one thing not identical with another—must be form, not matter. The “principle of individuation” was one of the important problems of the scholastic philosophy. In various forms, it has remained a problem to the pres

The difference of method, here, may be characterized as follows: In Locke or Hume, a comparatively modest conclusion is drawn from a broad survey of many facts, whereas in Leibniz a vast edifice of deduction is pyramided upon a pin-point of logical principle.

Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way, like the problem of cause and effect. Make a spurious division of one process into two, forget that you have done it, and then puzzle for centuries as to how the two get together.

—A statement can be true only relative to some understanding of it.