Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Archimedes, Bonaventura and Hilary Putnam

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam]
     Full Idea: The desire that grips Fodor, as it once gripped me, is the desire to make belief-desire psychology "scientific" by simply identifying it outright with computational psychology.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], p.7)
     A reaction: An "outright" identification looks very implausible. It seems that we should accept that belief-desire psychology is a very good guide to normal brain events, but a bad guide to unusual brain events. See Ideas 2987 and 7519.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality
Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Our notion of rationality is, at bottom, just one part of our conception of human flourishing, our idea of the good.
     From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Pref)
     A reaction: This looks like the beginnings of virtue epistemology, since rationality will have criteria, which would seem to be virtues. I find this idea appealing, both as a view of rationality, and as a view of the human good.