Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Alfred Tarski, Owen Flanagan and Empedocles

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2 ideas

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism
Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles]
     Full Idea: Wisdom and power of thought, know thou, are shared in by all things.
     From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) II.286
     A reaction: Sextus quotes this, saying that it is 'still more paradoxical', and that it explicitly includes plants. This may mean that Empedocles was not including inanimate matter.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: I would say that that my consciousness doesn't seem either physical or non-physical, ..but the belief that the mind is non-physical partly took hold because that fits well with thinking of human agents as free.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.102)
     A reaction: I think this is right. I personally think there is no such thing as free will, and that belief in it has been the single greatest delusion amongst philosophers (and others) for the last two thousand years. Dualism has now gone, and free will is next.