Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Lawrence B. Lombard, Mirabeau and committee and Jaegwon Kim

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6 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 2. Propositional Attitudes
How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another? [Kim]
     Full Idea: How do you find out that you believe, rather than, say, doubt or merely hope, that it will rain tomorrow?
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.159)
     A reaction: There should be a special medal created for philosophers who ask reasonable questions which are impossible to answer. They are among the greatest discoveries.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
Emotions have both intentionality and qualia [Kim]
     Full Idea: It has been customary to distinguish between two broad categories of mental phenomena, the intentional and the phenomenal, without excluding those that have both (e.g. emotions).
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §4 p.101)
     A reaction: This has become the conventional modern account of the mind. It seems a little too simple to say that the mind is characterised by two clearcut phenomena like this. I suspect that his picture will be modified in time.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology has been remarkably durable [Kim]
     Full Idea: Commonsense psychology seems to have an advantage over scientific psychology: its apparent greater stability. Scientific theories seem to come and go.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.110)
     A reaction: This seems to make the assumption that the folk are in universal long-term agreement about such things, which seems doubtful. See Ideas 2987 and 3410.
Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory [Kim]
     Full Idea: There is the "theory" theory of commonsense psychology, and also a "simulation" theory, which says it is not a matter of laws, but of simulating the behaviour of others, using ourselves as models.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.123)
     A reaction: Using ourselves as models may be the normal and correct way to relate to people within our own culture, but we have to start theorising when we encounter (e.g.) suicide bombers.
A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling [Kim]
     Full Idea: A culture that lacked our folk psychology would be unintelligible to us, and its language untranslatable into our own.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.110)
     A reaction: Surely we can manage to discuss the processing life of a robot, without having to resort to anthropomorphic psychology? Its human-style behaviour will fit, but the rest blatantly won't.
Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism [Kim]
     Full Idea: Freudian depth psychology has now almost achieved the status of folk psychology of the sophisticates.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.158)
     A reaction: You don't need to be a 'sophisticate' to laugh knowingly when someone makes an embarrassing Freudian slip. Terms like 'neurotic' are commonplace among modern folk.