Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for A.W. Moore, A Clark / D Chalmers and Paul M. Churchland

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12 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 1. Nature of Metaphysics
21959 Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things [Moore,AW]
     Full Idea: Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things.
     From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], Intro)
     A reaction: This is the first sentence of Moore's book, and a touchstone idea all the way through. It stands up well, because it says enough without committing to too much. I have to agree with it. It implies explanation as the key. I like generality too.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
19743 A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: Beliefs are partly constituted by features of the environment. ....a notebook plays for one person the same role that memory plays for another. ...The information is reliably there, available to consciousness, and to guide action, just as belief is.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §4)
     A reaction: This is the modern externalist approach to beliefs (along with broad content and external cognition systems). Not quite what we used to mean by beliefs, but we'll get used to it. I believe Plato wrote what it said in his books. Is memory just a role?
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
21958 Appearances are nothing beyond representations, which is transcendental ideality [Moore,AW]
     Full Idea: Appearances in general are nothing outside our representations, which is just what we mean by transcendental ideality.
     From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], B535/A507)
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
6176 A mechanism can count as 'cognitive' whether it is in the brain or outside it [Clark/Chalmers, by Rowlands]
     Full Idea: If the operation of a brain implant inside the brain is a cognitive operation, why should it not count as a cognitive operation when it is outside the brain? There are many mechanisms which would count as cognitive if they were inside the subject.
     From: report of A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.9
     A reaction: This argues for externalism of the vehicle of thought, rather than its content. The idea is that there is no significant difference between remembering a phone number and writing it on a bit of paper. I find it hard to disagree.
19741 If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognising as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §2)
     A reaction: In some sense they are obviously right that our cognitive activities spill out into books, calculators, record-keeping. It seems more like an invitation to shift the meaning of the word 'mind', than a proof that we have got it wrong.
19742 Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: Many identify the cognitive with the conscious, and it seems far from plausible that consciousness extends outside the head in these cases. But not every cognitive process, at least on standard usage, is a conscious process.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §3)
     A reaction: This gives you two sorts of externalism about mind to consider. No, three, if you say there is extended conceptual content, then extended cognition processes, then extended consciousness. Depends what you mean by 'consciousness'.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
19744 If a person relies on their notes, those notes are parted of the extended system which is the person [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: If Otto relies on his notebook, what this comes to is that Otto himself is best regarded as an extended system, a coupling of biological organism and external resources.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §5)
     A reaction: You start to get giddy as you read this stuff. If two people constantly share a notebook, they begin to blend into one another. It inclines me towards a more 'animalist' view of the nature of a person or a self.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
4988 Folk psychology may not be reducible, but that doesn't make it false [Kirk,R on Churchland,PM]
     Full Idea: It may well be that completed neuroscience will not include a reduction of folk psychology, but why should that be a reason to regard it as false? It would only be a reason if irreducibility entailed that they could not possibly both be true.
     From: comment on Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981]) by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §3.9
     A reaction: If all our behaviour had been explained by a future neuro-science, this might not falsify folk psychology, but it would totally marginalise it. It is still possible that dewdrops are placed on leaves by fairies, but this is no longer a hot theory.
4987 Eliminative materialism says folk psychology will be replaced, not reduced [Churchland,PM]
     Full Idea: Eliminative materialism says our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena is a radically false theory, so defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced (rather than reduced).
     From: Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981], Intro)
     A reaction: It is hard to see what you could replace the idea of a 'belief' with in ordinary conversation. We may reduce beliefs to neuronal phenomena, but we can't drop the vocabulary of the macro-phenomena. The physics of weather doesn't eliminate 'storms'.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
7518 If folk psychology gives a network of causal laws, that fits neatly with functionalism [Churchland,PM]
     Full Idea: The portrait of folk psychology as a network of causal laws dovetailed neatly with the emerging philosophy of mind called functionalism.
     From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], II)
     A reaction: And from the lower levels functionalism is supported by the notion that the brain is modular. Note the word 'laws'; this implies an underlying precision in folk psychology, which is then easily attacked. Maybe the network is too complex for simple laws.
7519 Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM]
     Full Idea: Folk psychology fails utterly to explain a considerable variety of central psychological phenomena: mental illness, sleep, creativity, memory, intelligence differences, and many forms of learning, to cite just a few.
     From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
     A reaction: If folk psychology is a theory, it will have been developed to predict behaviour, rather than as a full-blown psychological map. The odd thing is that some people seem to be very bad at folk psychology.
7520 Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM]
     Full Idea: Folk psychology has not progressed significantly in the last 2500 years; if anything, it has been steadily in retreat during this period; it does not integrate with modern science, and its emerging wallflower status bodes ill for its future.
     From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
     A reaction: [compressed] However, while shares in alchemy and astrology have totally collapsed, folk psychology shows not the slightest sign of going away, and it is unclear how it ever could. See Idea 3177.