display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
2 ideas
9327 | Organisms understand their worlds better if they understand themselves [Gulick] |
Full Idea: Organisms come to better understand their worlds by coming to better understand themselves and the ways in which their own structures engage their worlds. | |
From: Robert van Gulick (Mirror Mirror - Is That All? [2006], §III) | |
A reaction: Van Gulick is defending a higher-order theory of consciousness, but this strikes me as a good rationale for the target of philosophy, which has increasingly (since Descartes) focused on understanding our own minds. |
23449 | Interpreting a text is representing it as making sense [Morris,M] |
Full Idea: Interpreting a text is a matter of making sense of it. And to make sense of a text is to represent it as making sense. | |
From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], Intro.2) | |
A reaction: 'Making sense' is obviously not a very precise or determinate concept. It is probably better to say that the process is 'trying' to make sense of the text, because most texts don't totally make sense. |