Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Tim Bayne, Avineri,S/De-Shalit,A and Ralph Cudworth

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2 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Physicalism correlates brain and mind, explains causation by thought, and makes nature continuous [Bayne]
     Full Idea: The motivations for physicalism about the mind are that it accounts for correlations between states of the brain and states of thought, ...that it accounts for the causal role of thoughts, ...and that it does justice to the continuity of nature.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.2)
     A reaction: [summary] That is a pretty good summary of why I am a physicalist about the mind. I take all other theories to be dead footnotes in the history of thought - unless someone can produce a really good new argument. Which they can't.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
Sense is fixed in the material form, and so can't grasp abstract universals [Cudworth]
     Full Idea: Sense which lies flat and grovelling in the individuals, and is stupidly fixed in the material form, is not able to rise up or ascend to an abstract universal notion.
     From: Ralph Cudworth (On Eternal and Immutable Morality [1688], Ch.III.III.2)
     A reaction: This still strikes me as being one of the biggest problems with reductive physicalism, that a lump of meat in your head can grasp abstractions (whatever they are) and universal concepts. Personally I am a physicalist, but it is weird.