Seems like #Amo agrees w/ #Leibniz that mental causation is best understood teleologically, but disagrees w/ Leibniz by holding that mental causation can, as it were, reach out into the external world, a capacity he apparently takes as primitive.

Though he's not one of the (many) authors Amo cites (at least in the Impassivity), a good early modern source for this way of thinking about mind-world is #Arnauld.

#philosophy #earlymodons

I'm currently writing about #Locke, & I'm worried that my draft sounds like I'm simultaneously grumpy at Locke's interpreters for failing to take his ideas seriously & grumpy at Locke for not being as good at philosophy as #Arnauld & #Berkeley.

Trouble is, poor Locke was very popular among 'analytic' historians of #philosophy in the 20th century & those folks think every time Locke agrees w/ #Frege he's confused, but if they had understood the Port-Royal Logic they wouldn't've thought that.

Tired: #Berkeley as bridge from #Locke to #Hume.
Wired: Locke as bridge from #Arnauld to Hume.

#philosophy #earlymodons

The remarks in the Port-Royal Logic about church & state authority come off as totally unreflective, which is really quite surprising given that the authors' personal circumstances required them to reflect quite deeply on these matters.

AFAICT, the deal is just that, if you're a Jansenist, you spend your time bashing Calvinists to prove that you're not one. But I'm sure both #Arnauld and Nicole must've written more carefully on these topics elsewhere.

#earlymodons #philosophy #theology

"orators...usually use truth as one would use rocks to make a building or metal to make a statue: they size it, extend it, shorten it, and disguise it as needed to fit into the vain works they want to create out of words."

#Arnauld and Nicole, Logic (1662), ch. 2.30

#philosophy #earlymodons #quotes

"the good qualities of people we admire lead us to approve of their faults, and the faults of those we do not admire make us condemn what is good in them. For we do not consider that even the most imperfect people are not completely imperfect, and that God leaves imperfections even in the most virtuous."
#Arnauld & Nicole, Logic (1662), ch. 3.20

#philosophy #earlymodons #quotes