231 ideas
| 3798 | An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is nothing to write home about either. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably he means a life which is all theory and no practice. Compare Idea 343. |
| 8349 | The best way to do ontology is to make sense of our normal talk [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: I do not know any better way of showing what there is than looking at the assumptions needed to make sense of our normal talk. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967], §4) | |
| A reaction: Davidson was a pupil of Quine. This I take to be the last flowering of twentieth century linguistic philosophy. The ontology we deduce from talk in a children's playground might be very bizarre, but we are unlikely to endorse it. 'Honest, it's true!' |
| 8868 | Objective truth arises from interpersonal communication [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The source of the concept of objective truth is interpersonal communication. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209) | |
| A reaction: This is a distinctively Davidsonian idea, arising out of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. We could go a step further, and just say that 'objectivity is a social concept'. Davidson more or less pleads guilty to pragmatism in this essay. |
| 3969 | There are no ultimate standards of rationality, since we only assess others by our own standard [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It makes no sense to speak of comparing or agreeing on ultimate standards of rationality, since it is our own standards in each case to which we must turn in interpreting others. This is not a failure of objectivity, but where 'questions come to an end'. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
| A reaction: This seems wrong, given the commitment to truth and charity in interpretation. He could have said the same about perception, but I doubt if he would. |
| 3972 | Truth and objectivity depend on a community of speakers to interpret what they mean [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The basis on which the concepts of truth and objectivity depend for application is a community of understanding, agreement among speakers on how each is to be understood. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
| A reaction: Obviously all understanding is, in practice, an interpretation by a community, but that isn't what 'truth' means. We mean 'true independently of any community'. |
| 3801 | Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: We must assume that something matters - that some things are for better and some things are for worse, for without that our assumed rationality would have nothing on which to get a purchase. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.1) | |
| A reaction: It does seem that rationality wouldn't exist as an activity without some value to motivate it. |
| 6396 | A sentence is held true because of a combination of meaning and belief [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: A sentence is held true because of two factors: what the holder takes the sentence to mean, and what he believes. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.20) | |
| A reaction: A key question is whether a belief (e.g. an imagistic one, or one held by an animal) could be true, even though no sentence is involved. Linguistic philosophers tend to avoid this question, or assume the answer is 'no'. |
| 23295 | Truth cannot be reduced to anything simpler [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We cannot hope to underpin the concept of truth with something more transparent or easier to grasp. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.21) | |
| A reaction: I suppose precise accounts of correspondence or coherence are offered as replacements for truth, but neither of those ever seem to be possible. I agree with accepting truth as a primitive. |
| 19160 | A comprehensive theory of truth probably includes a theory of predication [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Theories of truth and theories of predication are closely related: it seems probable that any comprehensive theory of truth will include a theory of predication. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: Davidson defends the view that it is this way round. It is tempting to label them both as 'primitive'. Davidson distinguishes a 'theory' about truth from a 'definition'. |
| 23284 | Plato's Forms confused truth with the most eminent truths, so only Truth itself is completely true [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Plato's conflation of abstract universals with entities of supreme value reinforced the confusion of truth with the most eminent truths. …The only perfect exemplar of a Form is the Form itself, …and only truth itself is completely true. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.3) | |
| A reaction: Even non-subscribers to Plato often talk as if there were some grand thing called the Truth with a capital T, quite often used in a religious context. Truth is the hallmark of successful (non-fanciful) thought. |
| 23286 | Truth can't be a goal, because we can neither recognise it nor confim it [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Since it is neither visible as a target, nor recognisable when achieved, there is no point in calling truth a goal. We should only aim at increasing confidence in our beliefs, by collecting further evidence or checking our calculations. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], P.6) | |
| A reaction: This is mainly aimed at pragmatists, but Davidson obviously subscribes (as do I) to their fallibilist view of knowledge. |
| 19151 | Antirealism about truth prevents its use as an intersubjective standard [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Antirealism, with its limitations of truth to what can be ascertained, deprives truth of its role as an intersubjective standard. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: I like this, because it lifts truth out of individual minds. I take truth to be an ideal - a simple one with little content, which is thus fairly uncontroversial. Truth is the main general purpose of thinking. |
| 23291 | Without truth, both language and thought are impossible [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Without a grasp of the concept of truth, not only language, but thought itself, is impossible. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.16) | |
| A reaction: Davidson never mentions animals, but I like this idea because it points to importance of truth for animals as well. I say that truth is relevant to any mind that makes judgements - and quite small animals (e.g. ants and spiders) make judgements. |
| 8188 | Davidson takes truth to attach to individual sentences [Davidson, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Davidson, by contrast to Frege, has taken truth as attaching to linguistic items, that is, to actual or hypothetical token sentences. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (True to the Facts [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Truth and the Past 1 | |
| A reaction: My personal notion of truth is potentially applicable to animals, so this doesn't appeal to me. I am happy to think of animals as believing simple propositions that never get as far as language, and being right or wrong about them. |
| 19144 | 'Epistemic' truth depends what rational creatures can verify [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The 'epistemic' view of truth asserts an essential tie to epistemology, and introduces a dependence of truth on what can somehow be verified by finite rational creatures. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: This view, which seems to be widely held, strikes me as an elementary confusion. I take truth to be fully successful belief. If you say belief can never be fully successful, then we can't know the truth - but that doesn't destroy the concept of truth. |
| 19044 | Saying truths fit experience adds nothing to truth; nothing makes sentences true [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The notion of fitting the totality of experience ...adds nothing intelligible to the simple concept of being true. ....Nothing, ...no thing, makes sentences and theories true: not experience, not surface irritations, not the world. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.11), quoted by Willard Quine - On the Very Idea of a Third Dogma p.39 | |
| A reaction: If you don't have a concept of what normally makes a sentence true, I don't see how you go about distinguishing what is true from what is false. You can't just examine the sentence to see if it has the 'primitive' property of truth. Holism is involved.... |
| 18702 | Names, descriptions and predicates refer to things; without that, language and thought are baffling [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The simple thesis that names and descriptions often refer to things, and that predicates often have an extension in the world of things, is obvious, and essential to the most elementary appreciation of both language and the thoughts we express. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Replies to Critics [1998], p.323) | |
| A reaction: In 1983 Davidson had been a rare modern champion of the coherence theory of truth, but this is his clearest later renunciation of that view (and quite right too). |
| 23292 | Correspondence can't be defined, but it shows how truth depends on the world [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Correspondence, while it is empty as a definition, does capture the thought that truth depends on how the world is. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.16) | |
| A reaction: Just don't try to give a precise account of the correspondence between two things (thoughts and facts) which are so utterly different in character. |
| 18902 | Correspondence theories can't tell you what truths correspond to [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The real objection to correspondence theories is that such theories fail to provide entities to which truth vehicles (as statements, sentence, or utterances) can be said to correspond. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Structure and Content of Truth [1990], p.304), quoted by Fred Sommers - Intellectual Autobiography Notes 23 | |
| A reaction: This is the remark which provoked Sommers to come out with Idea 18901, which strikes me as rather profound. |
| 23298 | Neither Aristotle nor Tarski introduce the facts needed for a correspondence theory [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Neither Aristotle's formula nor Tarski's truth definitions are sympathetic to the correspondence theory, because they don't introduce entities like facts or states of affairs for sentences to correspond. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.25) | |
| A reaction: This seems convincing, although it is often claimed that both theories offer a sort of correspondence. |
| 19148 | There is nothing interesting or instructive for truths to correspond to [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The real objection to the correspondence theory of truth is that there is nothing interesting or instructive to which true sentences correspond. (C.I. Lewis challenged defenders to locate the fact or part of reality to which a truth corresponded). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson defended a correspondence view in 'True to the Facts'. Davidson evidently also thinks the same objection applies to claims about truthmakers. If you say 'gold is shiny', the gold is very dispersed, but it is still there. |
| 19166 | The Slingshot assumes substitutions give logical equivalence, and thus identical correspondence [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The Slingshot argument (of Frege, Church and Gödel) assumes that if two sentences are logically equivalent, they correspond to the same thing, and what a sentence corresponds to is not changed if a singular term is replaced by a coreferring term. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: This obviously won't work for 'Oedipus thinks he ought to marry Jocasta'. Sentences correspond, I presume, to what they are about, which is often a matter of emphasis or phrasing. Hence the Slingshot sounds like nonsense to me. |
| 19167 | Two sentences can be rephrased by equivalent substitutions to correspond to the same thing [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Slingshot: 'Scott is the author of Waverley' and 'The number of counties in Utah is twenty-nine' can be rephrased by substitution so that they are both about the number twenty-nine, and are thus correspond to the same thing. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: [my paraphrase of Davidson's quote from Church 1956:24] These sentences clearly do not correspond to the same thing, so something has gone wrong with the idea that logically equivalent sentences have identical correspondents. |
| 19081 | Coherence with a set of propositions suggests we can know the proposition corresponds [Davidson, by Donnellan] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argues that the coherence of a set of propositions with a set of beliefs is a good indication that the proposition corresponds to objective facts and that we can know that propositions correspond. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983]) by Keith Donnellan - Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again §2.2 | |
| A reaction: Young calls this an 'epistemological route to coherentism'. Davidson is sometimes cited as a fan of the coherence theory of truth, but this just seems to accept Russell's point that coherence is a good test for truth. |
| 19150 | Coherence truth says a consistent set of sentences is true - which ties truth to belief [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: A pure coherence theory of truth says that all sentences in a consistent set of sentences are true. ...I class this with epistemic views, because it ties truth directly to what is believed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Neurath] I would have thought that coherence is rather more than mere consistency. Truths which have nothing whatever in common can be consistent with one another. [but see his p.43 n14] |
| 19145 | We can explain truth in terms of satisfaction - but also explain satisfaction in terms of truth [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Truth is easily defined in terms of satisfaction (as Tarski showed), but, alternatively, satisfaction can be taken to be whatever relation yields a correct account of truth. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson is assessing which is the prior 'primitive' concept, and he votes for truth. A perennial problem in philosophy, and very hard to find reasons for a preference. The axiomatic approach grows from taking truth as primitive. Axioms for satisfaction? |
| 19146 | Satisfaction is a sort of reference, so maybe we can define truth in terms of reference? [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: That the truth of sentences is defined by appeal to the semantic properties of words suggests that, if we could give an account of the semantic properties of words (essentially, of reference or satisfaction), we would understand the concept of truth. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: If you thought that words were prior to sentences, this might be the route to go. Davidson gives priority to sentences, and so prefers to work from the other end, which treats truth as primitive, and then defines reference and meaning. |
| 19174 | Axioms spell out sentence satisfaction. With no free variables, all sequences satisfy the truths [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Axioms specify how each unstructured predicate is satisfied by a particular sequence. Then recursive axioms characterise complex sentences built from simpler ones. Closed sentences have no free variables, so true sentences are satisfied by all sequences. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: I take 'all sequences' to mean all combinations of objects in the domain. Thus nothing in domain contradicts the satisfied sentences. Hence Tarski's truth is said to be 'true in a model', where the whole system vouches for the sentence. |
| 23288 | When Tarski defines truth for different languages, how do we know it is a single concept? [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We have to wonder how we know that it is some single concept which Tarski indicates how to define for each of a number of well-behaved languages. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], P.11) | |
| A reaction: Davidson says that Tarski makes the assumption that it is a single concept, but fails to demonstrate the fact. This resembles Frege's Julius Caesar problem - of how you know whether your number definition has defined a number. |
| 23297 | The language to define truth needs a finite vocabulary, to make the definition finite [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If the definition of the truth predicate is to be finite (Tarski insisted on this), the definition must take advantage of the fact that sentences, though potentially infinite in number, are constructed from a finite vocabulary. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.23) | |
| A reaction: Not sure whether this is in the object language or the meta-language, though I guess the former. |
| 19136 | Many say that Tarski's definitions fail to connect truth to meaning [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is complained that Tarski's definitions do not establish the connection between truth and meaning that many philosophers hold to be essential. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: This, of course, was Davidson's big mission - to build on Tarski's theory a view of truth which dovetailed it with theories of meaning and reference. |
| 19139 | Tarski does not tell us what his various truth predicates have in common [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There is no indication in Tarski's formal work of what it is that his various truth predicates have in common, and this is part of the content of the concept. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a good question to raise. If I list all the 'red' things, I can still ask what qualifies them to all appear on the same list. |
| 19147 | Truth is the basic concept, because Convention-T is agreed to fix the truths of a language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The key role of Convention-T in determining that truth, as characterised by the theory, has the same extension as the intuitive concept of truth makes it seem that it is truth rather than reference that is the basic primitive. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: The key strength of Tarski's account is that it specifies the extension of 'true' for a given language (as expressed in a richer meta-language). |
| 19172 | To define a class of true sentences is to stipulate a possible language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: When we enquire whether a truth definition defines the class of true sentences in a particular language, we are thinking of the truth definition as stipulating a possible language. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: Thus I might say "Nij wonk yang" is true if and only if snow is white, and make my first step towards a new language. An interesting way of looking at Tarski's project. |
| 23296 | We can elucidate indefinable truth, but showing its relation to other concepts [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We can still say revealing things about truth, by relating it to other concepts like belief, desire, cause and action. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.21) | |
| A reaction: The trickiest concept to link it to is meaning. I think Davidson's view points to the Axiomatic account of truth, which flourished soon after Davidson wrote this. We can give rules for the correct use of 'true'. |
| 19153 | Truth is basic and clear, so don't try to replace it with something simpler [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Truth is one of the clearest and most basic concepts we have, so it is fruitless to dream of eliminating it in favor of something simpler or more fundamental. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: For redundancy theorists, I suppose, truth would be eliminated in favour of 'assertion'. Replacing it with 'satisfaction' doesn't seem very illuminating. Davidson would say 'reference' is more tricky and elusive than truth. |
| 23287 | Disquotation only accounts for truth if the metalanguage contains the object language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Disquotation cannot pretend to give a complete account of the concept of truth, since it works only in the special case where the metalanguage contains the object language. Neither can contain their own truth predicate. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.10) | |
| A reaction: Presumably more sophisticated and complete accounts would need a further account of translation between languages - which explains Quine's interest in that topic. […see this essay, p.12] |
| 19170 | Tarski is not a disquotationalist, because you can assign truth to a sentence you can't quote [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is clearly a mistake to call Tarski a disquotationalist. ...We say of a sentence not at hand (such as 'You gave the right answer to this question last night, but I can't remember what you said') that it is true or false. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) |
| 7332 | There is a huge range of sentences of which we do not know the logical form [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We do not know the logical form of sentences about counterfactuals, probabilities, causal relations, belief, perception, intention, purposeful action, imperatives, optatives, or interrogatives, or the role of adverbs, adjectives or mass terms. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967], p.35) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the famous 'Davidson programme', where teams of philosophers work out the logical forms for this lot, thus unravelling the logic of the world. If they are beavering away, some sort of overview should have emerged by now... |
| 18914 | Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: An alternative, and still controversial, extension of first-order logic is due to Donald Davidson, who allows for quantification over events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3 | |
| A reaction: I'm suddenly thinking this is quite an attractive proposal. We need to quantify over facts, or states of affairs, or events, or some such thing, to talk about the world properly. Objects, predicates and sets/parts is too sparse. I like facts. |
| 19140 | 'Satisfaction' is a generalised form of reference [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We can think of 'satisfaction' as a generalised form of reference. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of simple point we novices need from the great minds, to help us see what is going on. One day someone is going to explain Tarski's account of truth in plain English, but probably not in my lifetime. |
| 7771 | We need 'events' to explain adverbs, which are adjectival predicates of events [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: To deal with the truth conditions for some adverbs, Davidson introduced a domain of 'events', and made adverbs into adjectival predicates of events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a striking case of a procedure of which I heartily disapprove - deriving you ontology from your semantics. Do all languages have adverbs? |
| 8860 | Language-learning is not good enough evidence for the existence of events [Yablo on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: One needs a better reason for believing in events than the help they provide with language-learning. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967], §8) by Stephen Yablo - Apriority and Existence §8 | |
| A reaction: I can almost believe in micro-events at the quantum level, but I cannot believe that the Renaissance (made of events within events within events) is an event, even though I may 'quantify over it', and discuss its causes and effects. |
| 7949 | Varied descriptions of an event will explain varied behaviour relating to it [Davidson, by Macdonald,C] |
| Full Idea: Davidson points out that we can only make sense of patterns of behaviour such as excuses if events can have more than one description. So I flip the light switch, turn on the light, illuminate the room, and alert a prowler, but I do only one thing. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: We can distinguish an event as an actual object, and as an intentional object. We can probably individuate intentional events quite well (according to our interests), but actual 'events' seem to flow into one another and overlap. |
| 8348 | If we don't assume that events exist, we cannot make sense of our common talk [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The assumption, ontological and metaphysical, that there are events, is one without which we cannot make sense of much of our most common talk. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967], §4) | |
| A reaction: He considers events to be unanalysable basics. Explanation of normal talk also needs ghosts, premonitions, telepathy and Father Christmas. It is extremely hard to individuate events, unless they are subatomic, and rather numerous. |
| 9843 | You can't identify events by causes and effects, as the event needs to be known first [Dummett on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's criterion for the identity of events is a mistake, because we cannot know the causes and effects of an event until we know what that event comprises. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: How many attempts by analytical philosophers to give necessary and sufficient conditions for things seem to founder in this way. Their predecessor is at the end of 'Theaetetus'; you have to know what the sun is before you can define it. |
| 14602 | Events can only be individuated causally [Davidson, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Davidson claims that events can only be individuated causally. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], 3) by Jonathan Schaffer - Causation and Laws of Nature 3 | |
| A reaction: Schaffer rejects this in favour of individuating events by their spatiotemporal locations and intrinsic natures (which seem to be property instantiations, a la Kim). Schaffer was a pupil of David Lewis. |
| 14004 | We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne] |
| Full Idea: Davidson claims that we require the existence of events in order to make sense of a) action statements, b) causal statements, c) explanation, d) the mind-body problem, and e) the logic of adverbial modification. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], Intro IIb) by Craig Bourne - A Future for Presentism | |
| A reaction: Events are a nice shorthand, but I don't like them in a serious ontology. Prior says there objects and what happens to them; Kim reduces events to other things. Processes are more clearly individuated than events. |
| 8278 | The claim that events are individuated by their causal relations to other events is circular [Lowe on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Davidson has urged that events are individuated by the causal relations which they bear to one another, in accordance with the principle that events are identical just in case they have the same causes and effects. But the principle is viciously circular. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 7.4 | |
| A reaction: You wouldn't want to identify a person just by their relationships, even though those will certainly be unique. Generally it is what I am (right now) naming as the Functional Fallacy: believing that specifying the function of x explains x. |
| 23285 | If we try to identify facts precisely, they all melt into one (as the Slingshot Argument proves) [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If we try to provide a serious semantics for reference to facts, we discover that they melt into one; there is no telling them apart. The relevant argument (the 'Slingshot') was credited to Frege by Alonso Church. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.5) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like good grounds for not attempting to be too precise. 'There are bluebells in my local wood' identifies a fact by words, but even an animal can distinguish this fact. Only a logician dreams of making its content precise. |
| 15002 | If the best theory of adverbs refers to events, then our ontology should include events [Davidson, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argued that the best linguistic theory of adverbial modification assigns truth-conditions quantifying over events; thus we must embrace an ontology of events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (The Logical Form of Action Sentences [1967]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 07.8 | |
| A reaction: Sider is critical and I agree. This is just the sort of linguistic manoeuvre that gets philosophy a bad name. As Yablo remarks, we have a terrible tendency to want to thingify everything. |
| 19173 | Treating predicates as sets drops the predicate for a new predicate 'is a member of', which is no help [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: 'Theaetetus is a member of the set of seated objects' doesn't mention the predicate 'sits', but has a new predicate 'is a member of', with no given semantic role. We are back with Plato's problem with the predicate 'instantiates'. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: Plato's problem is the 'third man' problem - a regress in the explanation. In other words, if we are trying to explain predication, treating predicates as sets gets us nowhere. Just as I always thought. But you have to want explanations. |
| 14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
| Full Idea: We can bring a real disposition into existence, as in Dennett's case of a piece of cardboard torn in half, so that two strangers can infallibly identify one another. | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], p.376) by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 03.7 n37 | |
| A reaction: Presumably human artefacts in general qualify as sets of dispositions which we have created. |
| 7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: We don't need 'essences' or 'criteria' to keep the meaning of our word from sliding all over the place; our words will stay put, quite firmly attached as if by gravity to the nearest similarity cluster. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.2) | |
| A reaction: Plausible, but essentialism (which may have been rejuventated by a modern theory of reference in language) is not about language. It is offering an explanation of why there are 'similarity clusters. Organisms are too complex to have pure essences. |
| 19142 | Probability can be constrained by axioms, but that leaves open its truth nature [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Kolmogorov's axiomatisation of probability puts clear constraints on the concept of probability, but leaves open whether probability is further characterised as relative frequency, degree of belief, or something else. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson cites this to show the limitations of axiomatic approaches to any topic (e.g. sets, truth, arithmetic). The item in question must be treated as a 'primitive'. This always has the feeling of second-best. |
| 2526 | Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The besetting foible of philosophers is mistaking failures of imagination for insights into necessity. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) |
| 3802 | Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: You say you cannot imagine that p, and therefore declare that p is impossible. Mightn't that be hubris? | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.3) |
| 11145 | Having a belief involves the possibility of being mistaken [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Someone cannot have a belief unless he understands the possibility of being mistaken. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.170) | |
| A reaction: If you pretend to throw a ball for a dog, but don't release it, the dog experiences being mistaken very dramatically. |
| 8806 | The concepts of belief and truth are linked, since beliefs are meant to fit reality [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Knowing what a belief is brings with it the concept of objective truth, for the notion of a belief is the notion of a state that may or may not jibe with reality. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.162) | |
| A reaction: I find any discussion of belief that makes no reference to truth (as in Hume) quite puzzling. I can understand it when a belief is just triggered by a sensation ('this is hot'), but not when a belief arrives after careful comparison of reasons. |
| 6397 | The concept of belief can only derive from relationship to a speech community [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We have the idea of belief from its role in the interpretation of language; as a private attitude it is not intelligible except in relation to public language. So a creature must be a member of a speech community to have the concept of belief. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.22) | |
| A reaction: This shows how Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4152) hovers behind Davidson's philosophy. The idea is quite persuasive. A solitary creature just follows its mental states. The question of whether it believes them is a meta-thought. |
| 8867 | A belief requires understanding the distinctions of true-and-false, and appearance-and-reality [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Having a belief demands in addition appreciating the contrast between true belief and false, between appearance and reality, mere seeming and being. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209) | |
| A reaction: This sets the bar very high for belief (never mind knowledge), and seems to imply that animals don't have beliefs. How should we describe their cognitive states then? I would say these criteria only apply to actual knowledge. |
| 7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The wavelengths of the light entering the eye are only indirectly related to the colours we see objects to be. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.2) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously bad news for naïve realism, but I also take it as good support for the primary/secondary distinction. I just can't make sense of anyone claiming that colour exists anywhere else except in the brain. |
| 8252 | Davidson believes experience is non-conceptual, and outside the space of reasons [Davidson, by McDowell] |
| Full Idea: Davidson thinks that experience can be nothing but an extra-conceptual impact on sensibility. So he concludes that experience must be outside the space of reasons. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], I.6) by John McDowell - Mind and World I | |
| A reaction: McDowell's challenge to the view that experience is extra-conceptual seems to be the key debate among modern empiricists. My only intuition in this area is that we should beware of all-or-nothing solutions to such problems. |
| 6400 | Without the dualism of scheme and content, not much is left of empiricism [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The third dogma of empiricism is the dualism of scheme and content, of organizing system and something waiting to be organized, which cannot be made intelligible and defensible. If we give it up, it is not clear that any distinctive empiricism remains. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.189) | |
| A reaction: The first two dogmas were 'analyticity' and 'reductionism', as identified by Quine in 1953. Presumably Hume's Principles of Association (Idea 2189) would be an example of a scheme. A key issue is whether there is any 'pure' content. |
| 8255 | Davidson says the world influences us causally; I say it influences us rationally [McDowell on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Davidson urges that we should hold that the world exerts a merely causal influence on our thinking, but I am trying to describe a way in which the world exerts a rational influence on our thinking. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983]) by John McDowell - Mind and World II.5 | |
| A reaction: McDowell seems to be fighting for the existence of 'pure' reason in a way that is hard to defend with a thoroughly materialist view of human brains. If the world is coherent, then maybe it is rational, and so has reasons to offer us? |
| 23294 | It is common to doubt truth when discussing it, but totally accept it when discussing knowledge [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: You are following Plato's lead if you worry about the concept of truth when it is the focus of your attention, but you pretend you understand it when trying to cope with knowledge (or belief, memory, perception etc.). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Folly of Trying to Define Truth [1999], p.20) | |
| A reaction: Nice to find someone pointing out this absurdity. He says Hume does the same with doubts about the external world, which he ignores when discussing other minds. Belief is holding true; only truths are actually remembered…. |
| 8804 | Reasons for beliefs are not the same as evidence [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We must find a reason for supposing most of our beliefs are true that is not a form of evidence. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.158) | |
| A reaction: This simple observation strikes me as being a key truth in epistemology. It is the same confusion that creates Jackson's Knowledge Argument (Idea 7377) against physicalism (that experiencing red can be thought to be knowledge). |
| 8802 | Sensations lack the content to be logical; they cause beliefs, but they cannot justify them [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The relation between a sensation and a belief cannot be logical, since sensations are not beliefs or propositional attitudes. The relation must be causal. Sensations cause some beliefs, but they do not show why the belief is justified. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.157) | |
| A reaction: This is, I am beginning to think, the single most important idea in the whole of modern epistemology. Animals have beliefs caused in this way, and because they only have simple beliefs about immediate things, most of their beliefs are true. |
| 2523 | That every mammal has a mother is a secure reality, but without foundations [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Naturalistic philosophers should look with favour on the finite regress that peters out without foundations or thresholds or essences. That every mammal has a mother does not imply an infinite regress. Mammals have secure reality without foundations. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: I love this thought, which has permeated my thinking quite extensively. Logicians are terrified of regresses, but this may be because they haven't understood the vagueness of language. |
| 8801 | Coherent justification says only beliefs can be reasons for holding other beliefs [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes a coherence theory of justification is simply the claim that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.156) | |
| A reaction: I think I agree fully with this. Red patches and headaches I count as evidence rather than as reasons. Since a red patch can be hallucinatory, and a headache can be dreamed, they can't possibly embody true propositions without critical evaluation. |
| 3795 | Causal theories require the "right" sort of link (usually unspecified) [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: In causal theories of knowledge and reference, the causal chain between object and thought must be of the "right" sort - the nature of rightness to be specified later, typically. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §3.3 n14) | |
| A reaction: This is now the standard objection to a purely causal account of reference. Which of the many causal chains causes the meaning? Knowledge of maths is a further problem for it. |
| 8805 | Skepticism is false because our utterances agree, because they are caused by the same objects [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: What stands in the way of global skepticism of the senses is the fact that we must take the objects of a belief to be the causes of that belief. And our utterances mean the same thing because belief in their truth is caused by the same objects. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.161) | |
| A reaction: This is hardly a knock-down argument against scepticism, but it builds a nice picture. The second half extends the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). But I still have non-existent conversations about non-existent things in my dreams. |
| 10347 | Objectivity is intersubjectivity [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: An entity is objective in so far as it is intersubjective. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]), quoted by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: This thought baffled me until I saw it in the context of socialised epistemology. Effectively objectivity is subsumed under justification, which in turn is seen in a social context, not private to individuals. |
| 6398 | Different points of view make sense, but they must be plotted on a common background [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Different points of view make sense, but only if there is a common co-ordinate system on which to plot them. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.184) | |
| A reaction: This seems right to me. I am very struck by the close similarities between people from wildly differing cultural backgrounds, as seen, for example, at the Olympic Games. |
| 7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All brains are, in essence, anticipation machines. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: This would necessarily, I take it, make them induction machines. So brains will only evolve in a world where induction is possible, which is one where there a lot of immediately apprehensible regularities. |
| 8347 | Explanations typically relate statements, not events [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Explanations typically relate statements, not events. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967], §4) | |
| A reaction: An oddly linguistic way of putting our attempts to understand the world. Presumably the statements are supposed to be about the events (or whatever), and they are supposed to be true, so we are trying to relate features of the world. |
| 3960 | There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right. It fits with Searle's notion of consciousness as a property, like the liquidity of water. I don't panic if I think "I have no mind, but I have extraordinary properties". |
| 4608 | Minds are hard-wired, or trial-and-error, or experimental, or full self-aware [Dennett, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: Dennett identifies a hierarchy of minds running from 'Darwinian' (hard-wired solutions to problems), to 'Skinnerian' (trial-and-error), to 'Popperian' (anticipating possible experience), to 'Gregorian' (self-conscious representation, probably linguistic). | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996]) by John Heil - Philosophy of Mind Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. The concept of an experiment seems a major step (assessing reality against an internal map), and the ability to think about one's own thoughts certainly strikes me as the mark of a top level mind. Maybe that is the importance of language. |
| 8866 | If we know other minds through behaviour, but not our own, we should assume they aren't like me [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If the mental states of others are known only through their behavioral and other outward manifestations, while this is not true of our own mental states, why should we think our own mental states are anything like those of others? | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.207) | |
| A reaction: His point is that if you seriously doubt other minds, you should follow through on the implications. But that is to treat it as a theory about other minds, rather an a sceptical worry. Descartes didn't walk into walls while writing Meditation 1. |
| 10346 | Knowing other minds rests on knowing both one's own mind and the external world [Davidson, by Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argues that knowledge of other minds presupposes knowledge of one's own mind, and that there is no knowledge of other minds without knowledge of the external world. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]) by Michael Dummett - Common Sense and Physics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: Davidson't argument is actually hard to swallow because it is so long and complex. Compressing the point makes it begin to sound like a variant of the argument from analogy. |
| 7393 | We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Even in our own case, we cannot draw the line separating our conscious mental states from our unconscious mental states. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being a simple and self-evident truth, which anyone working on the brain takes for granted, but an awful lot of philosophers (stuck somewhere in the seventeenth century) can't seem to grasp. |
| 7367 | Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the brain doesn't actually have to go to the trouble of "filling in" anything with "construction" - for no one is looking. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: This a very nice point, because claims that the mind fills in in various psychological visual tests always has the presupposition of a person (or homunculus?) which is overseeing the visual experiences. |
| 4880 | Sentience comes in grades from robotic to super-human; we only draw a line for moral reasons [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: 'Sentience' comes in every imaginable grade or intensity, from the simplest and most 'robotic', to the most exquisitely sensitive, hyper-reactive 'human'. We have to draw a line for moral policy, but it is unlikely we will ever discover a threshold. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the only plausible view, if you take the theory of evolution seriously. We can even observe low-grade marginal sentience in our own minds, and then shoot up the scale when we focus our minds properly on an object. |
| 2528 | Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: You can't have consciousness until you have the concept of consciousness. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: If you read enough Dennett this begins to sound vaguely plausible, but next day it sounds like an absurd claim. 'You can't see a tree until you have the concept of a tree?' When do children acquire the concept of consciousness? Are apes non-conscious? |
| 2525 | Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I continue to argue for a crucial role of natural language in generating the central features of consciousness. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: 'Central features' might beg the question. Dennett does doubt the consciousness of animals (1996). As I stare out of my window, his proposal seems deeply counterintuitive. How could language 'generate' consciousness? Would loss of language create zombies? |
| 7394 | Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Only a theory that explained conscious events in terms of unconscious events could explain consciousness at all. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds undeniable, so it seems to force a choice between reductive physicalism and mysterianism. Personally I think there must be an explanation in terms of non-conscious events, even if humans are too thick to understand it. |
| 7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: There is at least a lot that we can know about what it is like to be a bat, and Nagel has not given us a reason to believe there is anything interesting or theoretically important that is inaccessible to us. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.2) | |
| A reaction: I agree. If you really wanted to identify with the phenomenology of bathood, you could spend a lot of time in underground caves whistling with your torch turned off. I can't, of course, be a bat, but then I can't be my self of yesterday. |
| 3158 | Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Intentional theory is vacuous as psychology because it presupposes and does not explain rationality or intelligence. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.15?) | |
| A reaction: Virtually every philosophical theory seems to founder because it presupposes something like the thing it is meant to explain. I agree that 'intentionality' is a slightly airy concept that would probably reduce to something better. |
| 2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: It is on the foundation of unconscious intentionality that the higher-order complexities developed that have culminated in what we call consciousness. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right to me. Pace Searle, I have no problem with unconscious intentionality, and the general homuncular picture of low levels building up to complex high levels, which suddenly burst into the song and dance of consciousness. |
| 6624 | Dennett denies the existence of qualia [Dennett, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Dennett goes to the extreme of denying the existence of qualia altogether. | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Quining Qualia [1988]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: I sympathise with Dennett. Once you know how physically complex and rapid a quale is (about nine billion connections, all firing continuously), the notion that it seems to be some new 'thing', while just being a process, seems fine. Like a waterfall. |
| 4873 | What is it like to notice an uncomfortable position when you are asleep? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: What is it like to notice, while sound asleep, that your left arm has become twisted into a position in which it is putting undue strain on your left shoulder? Like nothing. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A nice question, and all part of Dennett's accurate campaign to show that consciousness is not an all-or-nothing thing. As when we are barely aware of driving, innumerable things happen in the shadowy corners of thought. |
| 7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional states of the brain. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 14.1) | |
| A reaction: 'Dispositional' reveals Dennett's behaviourist roots (he was a pupil of Ryle). Fodor is right that physicalism cannot just hide behind the word "complexity". That said, the combination of complexity and speed might add up to physical 'qualia'. |
| 7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If you define qualia as intrinsic properties of experiences considered in isolation from all their causes and effects, logically independent of all dispositional properties, then they are logically guaranteed to elude all broad functional analysis. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: This is a good point - it seems daft to reify qualia and imagine them dangling in mid-air with all their vibrant qualities - but that is a long way from saying there is nothing more to qualia than functional roles. Functions must be exlained too. |
| 7376 | We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The goal of the experiment was to describe a case in which it was obvious that the qualia would be inverted while the reactive dispositions would be normalized. But the assumption that one could just tell is question-begging. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.4) | |
| A reaction: It certainly seems simple and plausible that if we inverted our experience of traffic light colours, no difference in driver behaviour would be seen. However, my example, of a conversation in a gallery of abstract art, seems more problematic. |
| 7372 | In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If a playing card is held in peripheral vision, we can see the card without being able to identify its colours or its shapes. That's normal sight, not blindsight, so we should be reluctant on those grounds to deny visual experience to blindsight subjects. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 11.4) | |
| A reaction: This is an important point in Dennett's war against the traditional all-or-nothing view of mental events. Nevertheless, blindsight subjects deny all mental experience, while picking up information, and peripheral vision never seems like that. |
| 7373 | Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Discussions of blindsight have tended to ignore just how paltry the information is that blindsight subjects glean from their blind fields. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 11.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a bit unfair, because blindsight has mainly pointed to interesting speculations (e.g. Idea 2953). Nevertheless, if blindsight with very high information content is actually totally impossible, the speculations ought to be curtailed. |
| 19169 | Predicates are a source of generality in sentences [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Predicates introduce generality into sentences. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. Most words introduce generality. 'From' is a very general word about direction. 'Dogs bark' is as generally about dogs as it is generally about barking. |
| 4042 | Metaphysics requires the idea of people (speakers) located in space and time [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: An intelligible metaphysics will assign a central place to the idea of people (= speakers) with a location in public space and time. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Method of Truth in Metaphysics [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: The 'location' is the interesting bit, requiring people to be bodies, not abstractions. A big, plausible claim, but hard to prove. |
| 3797 | I am the sum total of what I directly control [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Control is the ultimate criterion of the self: I am the sum total of the parts I control directly. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: This looks awfully like a flagrant self-contradiction, and I think it is. It seems pretty obvious that there is at least a distinction between the bit or bits that do the controlling, and the bits that get controlled. |
| 7385 | People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Many people are comfortable taking the pragmatic approach to night/day, living/nonliving and mammal/premammal, but get anxious about the same attitude to having a self and not having a self. It must be All or Nothing, and One to a Customer. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.2) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think I believe in the existence of the self, but I also agree with Dennett. I greatly admire his campaign against All or Nothing thinking, which is a relic from an earlier age. A partial self could result from infancy or brain damage. |
| 4881 | Being a person must involve having second-order beliefs and desires (about beliefs and desires) [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: An important step towards becoming a person is the step up from a first-order intentional system to a second-order system (which has beliefs and desires about beliefs and desires). | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Call it 'meta-thought'. I agree. Dennett thinks language is crucial to this, but the hallmark of intelligence and full-blown personhood is meta- and meta-meta-thought. Maybe the development of irony is a step up the evolutionary scale. Sarcasm is GOOD. |
| 7383 | The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Like the biological self, the psychological or narrative self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1) | |
| A reaction: Does Dennett have empirical evidence for this claim? It seems to me perfectly possible that there is a real thing called the 'self', and it is the central controller of the brain (involving propriotreptic awareness, understanding, and will). |
| 7386 | Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Selves are not independently existing soul-pearls, but artefacts of the social processes that create us, and, like other such artefacts, subject to sudden shifts in status. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.2) | |
| A reaction: "Soul-pearls" is a nice phrase for the Cartesian view, but there can something between soul-pearls and social constructs. Personally I think the self is a development of the propriotreptic (body) awareness that even the smallest animals must possess. |
| 7381 | We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Our fundamental tactic of self-protection, self-control and self-definition is telling stories, and more particularly concocting and controlling the story we tell others - and ourselves - about who we are. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to suggest that there is someone who wants to protect themselves, and who wants to tell the stories, and does tell the stories. No one can deny the existence of this autobiographical element in our own identity. |
| 7382 | We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The effect of our string of personal narratives is to encourage the audience to (try to) posit a unified agent whose words they are, about whom they are: in short, to posit a centre of narrative gravity. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 13.1) | |
| A reaction: What would be the evolutionary advantage of getting the audience to posit a non-existent self, instead of a complex brain? It might be simpler than that, since we say of a bird "it wants to do x". What is "it"? Some simple thing, like a will. |
| 7370 | The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Who's in charge of the brain? First one coalition and then another, shifting in ways that are not chaotic thanks to good meta-habits that tend to entrain coherent, purposeful sequences rather than an interminable helter-skelter power grab. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: This is probably the best anti-ego account available. Dennett offers our sense of self as a fictional autobiography, but the sense of a single real controller is very powerful. If I jump at a noise, I feel that 'I' have lost control of myself. |
| 7655 | The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All the work done by the imagined homunculus in the Cartesian Theater must be distributed among various lesser agencies in the brain, none of which is conscious. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Dennett's account crucially depends on consciousness being much more fragmentary than most philosophers claim it to be. It is actually full of joints, which can come apart. He may be right. |
| 3800 | You can be free even though force would have prevented you doing otherwise [Dennett, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If a brain implant would compel you to perform an action which you in fact freely choose, then you are free, but couldn't have done otherwise. | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §6.1) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 3803 | Can we conceive of a being with a will freer than our own? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Can I even conceive of beings whose wills are freer than our own? | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.3) |
| 3791 | Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The creature who is not only sensitive to patterns in its environment, but also sensitive to patterns in its own reactions to patterns in its environment, has taken a major step. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §2.2) |
| 3794 | Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Foreknowledge is what permits control. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §3.2) |
| 7379 | If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists mean a by-product by an 'epiphenomenon', ...but the philosophical meaning is too strong: it yields a concept of no utility whatsoever. Since x has no physical effects (according to the definition), no instrument can detect it. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.5) | |
| A reaction: Well said! This has always been my half-formulated intuition about the claim that the mind (or anything) might be totally epiphenomenal. All a thing such as the reflection on a lake can be is irrelevant to the functioning of that specified system. |
| 7365 | Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Given the way dualism wallows in mystery, accepting dualism is giving up. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Some things, of course, might be inherently mysterious to us, and we might as well give up. The big dualist mystery is the explanation of how such different substances can interact. How do two physical substances manage to interact? |
| 3159 | Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Intentional systems don't really have beliefs and desires, but one can explain and predict their behaviour by ascribing beliefs and desires to them. This strategy is pragmatic, not right or wrong. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.7?) | |
| A reaction: If the ascription of beliefs and desires explains behaviour, then that is good grounds for thinking they might be real features of the brain, and even if that is not so, they are real enough as abstractions from brain events, like the 'economic climate'. |
| 3796 | The active self is a fiction created because we are ignorant of our motivations [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Faced with our inability to 'see' where the centre or source of our free actions is,…we exploit the gaps in our self-knowledge by filling it with a mysterious entity, the unmoved mover, the active self. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.1) | |
| A reaction: I am convinced that there is no such things as free will; its origins are to be found in religion, where it is a necessary feature of a very supreme God. I don't believe for a moment that we need to believe in free will. |
| 3161 | If mind is just an explanation, the explainer must have beliefs [Rey on Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If something has beliefs only if something else is disposed to "treat it" (i.e. think of it) as though it does, then we seem at least to have an infinite regress of appeals to believers. | |
| From: comment on Daniel C. Dennett (works [1985]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 3.2.1 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a serious difficulty for behaviourists, but is not insurmountable. We need a community of interlocking behaviours, with a particular pattern of behaviour being labelled (for instrumental convenience) as 'beliefs'. |
| 3986 | The 'intentional stance' is a way of interpreting an entity by assuming it is rational and self-aware [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The 'intentional stance' is the tactic of interpreting an entity by adopting the presupposition that it is an approximation of the ideal of an optimally designed (i.e. rational) self-regarding agent. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: This is Dennett's 'instrumentalism', a descendant of behaviourism, which strikes me as a pragmatist's evasion of the ontological problems of mind which should interest philosophers |
| 4983 | There are no rules linking thought and behaviour, because endless other thoughts intervene [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We know too much about thought and behaviour to trust exact and universal statements linking them. Beliefs and desires issue in behaviour only as modified and mediated by further beliefs and desires, attitudes and attendings, without limit. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970], p.217) | |
| A reaction: Now seen as a key objection to behaviourism, and rightly so. However, I am not sure about "without limit", which implies an implausible absolute metaphysical freedom. Davidson goes too far in denying any nomological link between thought and brain. |
| 2530 | Could a robot be made conscious just by software? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: How could you make a robot conscious? The answer, I think, is to be found in software. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a commitment to strong AI, though Dennett is keen to point out that brains are the only plausible implementation of such software. Most find his claim baffling. |
| 7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All varieties of functionalism can be viewed as 'homuncular' functionalism of one grain size or another. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, as any huge and complex mechanism (like a moon rocket) will be made up of some main systems, then sub-systems, then sub-sub-sub.... This assumes that there are one or two overarching purposes, which there are in people. |
| 4875 | We descend from robots, and our intentionality is composed of billions of crude intentional systems [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: We are descended from robots, and composed of robots, and all the intentionality we enjoy is derived from the more fundamental intentionality of billions of crude intentional systems. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A more grand view of intentionality (such as Searle's) seems more attractive than this, but the crucial fact about Dennett is that he takes the implications of evolution much more seriously than other philosophers. He's probably right. |
| 3529 | Reduction is impossible because mind is holistic and brain isn't [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: Davidson rejects ontological reduction of mental to physical because propositional attitudes are holistic; there must be extensive coherence among someone's attitudes to treat them as a rational person, and this has no counterpart in physical theory. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.5 | |
| A reaction: I don't find this view persuasive. We treat the weather in simple terms, even though it is almost infinitely complex. Davidson has a Kantian overconfidence in our rationality. A coherence among the parts is needed to be a tree. |
| 3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If there are no strict psychophysical laws, this rules out reductionism, either by definition of mental predicates in physical terms, or by way of bridging laws. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: But it is by no means clear that there are no psycho-physical laws. How could this be known a priori? |
| 2307 | Anomalous monism says nothing at all about the relationship between mental and physical [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's anomalous monism says no more about the relationship between the mental and the physical than the claim that all objects with a colour have a shape says about the relationship between colours and shapes. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Mind in a Physical World §1 p.005 | |
| A reaction: Indeed, I find the enthusiasm for property dualism etc. quite baffling, given that we are merely told that mind is 'an anomaly'. I take it to be old fashioned dualism in trendy clothes. |
| 5497 | Mind is outside science, because it is humanistic and partly normative [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: For Davidson, mental types are individuated by considerations that are nonscientific, distinctly humanistic, and part normative, so will not coincide with any types that are designated in scientific terms. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.8 | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe this, mainly because I don't accept that there is a category called 'nonscientific'. All we are saying is that a brain is a hugely complicated object, and we don't properly understand its operations, though we relate to it very well. |
| 4081 | Anomalous monism says causes are events, so the mental and physical are identical, without identical properties [Davidson, by Crane] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's anomalous monism says that events are causes, so we can identify mental and physical events without having to identify their properties. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Tim Crane - Elements of Mind 2.18 | |
| A reaction: As Fodor insists, a thing like a mountain has properties at different levels of description. We can have 'property dualism' and full-blown reductive identity. |
| 2321 | If rule-following and reason are 'anomalies', does that make reductionism impossible? [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson takes mental anomalism (that the mind exhibits normativity and rationality), and in particular his claim that there are no laws connecting mental and physical properties, to undermine mind-body reductionism. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Mind in a Physical World §4 p.092 | |
| A reaction: A nice summary of the core idea of property dualism. Personally I expect the whole lot to be reducible, and to follow laws, but the sheer complexity of the brain permanently bars us from actually doing the reduction. |
| 3961 | Obviously all mental events are causally related to physical events [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: All mental events are causally related to physical events. ..This seems obvious. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: All mental events are physically caused. Some bodily physical events result from mental events. Probably all mental events have some effect of other mental events (all of which are in some sense physical). |
| 3404 | Davidson claims that mental must be physical, to make mental causation possible [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's thesis is that if mental events of a particular kind cause physical events of a particular kind, and the two kinds are connected by a law, then they must both be physical kinds. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.137 | |
| A reaction: Davidson would pretty obviously be right. The whole problem here is the idea of a 'law'. You can only have strict law for simple entities, like particles and natural kinds. The brain is a mess, like weather or explosions. |
| 3963 | There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There are no strict psychophysical laws (that is, laws connecting mental events under their mental descriptions with physical events under their physical descriptions). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly open to question. It may be just that no human mind could ever grasp such laws, given their probable complexity. |
| 3965 | Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me clearly true, however we propose to characterise mental events. |
| 3405 | If mental causation is lawless, it is only possible if mental events have physical properties [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Since no laws exist connecting mental and physical properties, purely physical laws must do the causal work, which means mental events enter into causal relations only because they possess physical properties that figure in laws. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.138 | |
| A reaction: Surely no such laws exist 'yet'? I can see no plausible argument that psycho-physical laws are impossible. However, the conclusion of this remark seems right. Interaction requires some sort of equality. |
| 3966 | The correct conclusion is ontological monism combined with conceptual dualism [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My basic premises lead to the conclusion of ontological monism coupled with conceptual dualism (like Spinoza, except that he denied mental causation). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: 'Conceptual dualism' implies no real difference, but 'property dualism' is better, suggesting different properties when viewed from different angles. |
| 16041 | Supervenience of the mental means physical changes mental, and mental changes physical [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The supervenience [of mental characteristics on the physical] might be taken to mean that there cannot be two events alike in all physical respects but differing in some mental respect, or an object cannot differ mentally without altering physically. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970], I) | |
| A reaction: This is the first occasion on which Davidson introduced his notion of supervenience. Supervenience is often taken to be one-way. The first implies physical causing mental; his second implies that mental causes physical. |
| 4879 | There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: There is no more fear or anger in adrenaline than there is silliness in a bottle of whiskey. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Not exactly an argument, but a nice rhetorical point against absurd claims about identity and reduction and elimination. We may say that there is no fear without adrenaline, and no adrenaline in a live brain without fear. |
| 7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: As long as your homunculi are more stupid and ignorant than the intelligent agent they compose, the nesting of homunculi within homunculi can be finite, bottoming out, eventually, with agents so unimpressive they can be replaced by machines. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: [Dennett first proposed this in 'Brainstorms' 1978]. This view was developed well by Lycan. I rate it as one of the most illuminating ideas in the modern philosophy of mind. All complex systems (like aeroplanes) have this structure. |
| 7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I don't maintain, of course, that human consciousness does not exist; I maintain that it is not what people often think it is. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I consider Dennett to be as near as you can get to an eliminativist, but he is not stupid. As far as I can see, the modern philosopher's bogey-man, the true total eliminativist, simply doesn't exist. Eliminativists usually deny propositional attitudes. |
| 7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If one wants to settle on some moment of processing in the brain as the moment of consciousness, this has to be arbitrary. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Seems eliminativist, as it implies that all that is really going on is 'processing'. But there are two senses of 'arbitrary' - that calling it consciousness is arbitrary (wrong), or thinking that mind doesn't move abruptly into consciousness (right). |
| 4876 | Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps there is a minimum speed for a mind, rather like the minimum escape velocity required to overcome gravity and leave the planet. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Dennett rejects this speculation, but he didn't stop to imagine what it would be LIKE if your brain slowed down, and he never considers Edelman's view that mind is a process. Put the two together… |
| 7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All visual experience is composed of activities of neural circuits whose very activity is innately pleasing to us. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 12.6) | |
| A reaction: This is the nearest I can find to Dennett saying something eliminativist. It seems to beg the question of who 'us' refers to, and what is being pleased, and how it is 'pleased' by these neural circuits. The Hard Question? |
| 6620 | Davidson sees identity as between events, not states, since they are related in causation [Davidson, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's version of the identity theory is couched in terms of events rather than states, because he regards causation as a relation between events. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.2 n12 | |
| A reaction: I think it may be more to the point that the mind is a dynamic thing, and so it consists of events rather than states, and hence we want to know what those events are made up from. I think my chair is causing me to rest above the floor… |
| 6383 | Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The concept of cause is what holds together our picture of the universe, a picture that would otherwise disintegrate into a diptych of the mental and the physical. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: Davidson seems to be the one who put mental causation at the centre of philosophy. By then denying that there are any 'psycho-physical' laws, he seems to me to have re-opened the metaphysical gap he says he was trying to close. |
| 3429 | Multiple realisability was worse news for physicalism than anomalous monism was [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's argument about psychophysical anomalism has not been embraced by everyone; multiple realisability of mental properties has had a much greater impact in undermining reductionism (and hence type physicalism). | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.218 | |
| A reaction: My view is that functional states are multiply realisable, but phenomenal states aren't. Fear functions in frogs much as it does in us, but being a frightened frog is nothing like being a frightened human. Their brains are different! |
| 4878 | The materials for a mind only matter because of speed, and a need for transducers and effectors [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I think there are only two good reasons why, when you make a mind, the materials matter: speed, and the ubiquity of transducers and effectors throughout the nervous system. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds roughly right, because it gives you something between multiple realisability (minds made of cans and string), and type-type identity (minds ARE a particular material). Call it 'biological functionalism'? |
| 6392 | Thought depends on speech [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The thesis I want to refine and then argue for is that thought depends on speech. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.8) | |
| A reaction: This has the instant and rather implausible implication that animals don't think. He is not, of course, saying that all thought is speech, which would leave out thinking in images. You can't do much proper thought without concepts and propositions. |
| 3987 | Like the 'centre of gravity', desires and beliefs are abstract concepts with no actual existence [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Like such abstracta as centres of gravity and parallelograms of force, the beliefs and desires posited by the highest intentional stance have no independent and concrete existence. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why we shouldn't one day have a physical account of the distinctive brain events involved in a belief or a desire |
| 3177 | You couldn't drive a car without folk psychology [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology is indispensable for driving a car, which would be terrifying if we didn't assume there were psychologically normal people behind the wheels. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (works [1985]), quoted by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind p.133 n35 | |
| A reaction: Nice example. If someone is approaching you from the front on your side of the road, should you assume that they are 'psychologically normal'? Does psychology imply behaviour, or vice versa? |
| 3967 | Absence of all rationality would be absence of thought [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: To imagine a totally irrational animal is to imagine an animal without thought. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
| A reaction: This wouldn't be so clear without the theory of evolution, which suggests that only the finders of truth last long enough to breed. |
| 6393 | A creature doesn't think unless it interprets another's speech [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: A creature cannot have a thought unless it is an interpreter of the speech of another. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.9) | |
| A reaction: His use of the word 'creature' shows that he is perfectly aware of the issue of whether animals think, and he is, presumably, denying it. At first glance this sounds silly, but maybe animals don't really 'think', in our sense of the word. |
| 6386 | In no important way can psychology be reduced to the physical sciences [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There is no important sense in which psychology can be reduced to the physical sciences. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Material Mind [1973], p.259) | |
| A reaction: In no 'important' way can the beauty of the Lake District be reduced to geology - but it is geology. 'Important' to whom? To a metaphysician, I would say psychology does reduce to physics, and that is important, but it is not important to a psychologist. |
| 7845 | When we need to do something, we depute an inner servant to remind us of it [Proust] |
| Full Idea: Whenever we have something definite to do at a given moment, we depute a certain person inside us who is accustomed to that sort of duty to keep an eye on the clock and warn us of the time. This inner servant reminded me that Albertine was coming soon. | |
| From: Marcel Proust (Remembrance of Things Past [1922], Cities.2.1) | |
| A reaction: I think Proust is wrong that we 'depute' this servant. I think it comes as a built-in feature, and the servant could never be abandoned or sacked, no matter how poor the service. Each of us is a team, which includes servants. |
| 4874 | The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The ancestor and chief rival of the language-of-thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas - that thoughts are about what they are about because they resemble their objects. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: When you place them side by side, neither seems quite right. How can a mental state resemble an object, and how can an inner language inherently capture the features of an object? Maybe we lack the words for the correct theory. |
| 2524 | A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Postulating a language of thought is a postponement of the central problems of content ascription, not a necessary first step. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: If the idea of content is built on the idea of representation, then you need some account of what the brain does with its representations. |
| 7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Neuro-science matters because - and only because - we have discovered that the many different neuromodulators and other chemical messengers that diffuse throughout the brain have functional roles that make important differences. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I agree with Dennett that this is the true ground for pessimism about spectacular breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, rather than abstract concerns about irreducible features of the mind like 'qualia' and 'rationality'. |
| 23803 | States have content if we can predict them well by assuming intentionality [Dennett, by Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Dennett maintains that a system has states with representational content if we are able to predict its behaviour reliably and voluminously by adopting the intentional stance toward it. | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (True Believers [1981]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 5 | |
| A reaction: Dennett himself seems happy to thereby attribute representational content to a chess-playing computer. This sounds like a test for content, rather than explaining what it is. Not promising, I think. |
| 3974 | Our meanings are partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: What we mean by what we say is partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.235) | |
| A reaction: There is 'strict and literal meaning', which is fixed by the words, even if I don't know what I am saying. But 'speaker's meaning' is surely a pure matter of a state of mind? |
| 6175 | External identification doesn't mean external location, as with sunburn [Davidson, by Rowlands] |
| Full Idea: Davidson observes that the inference from a thought being identified by a relation to something outside the head does not entail that the thought is not wholly in the head, just as sunburn is identified by external factors, but is still in the skin. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Knowing One's Own Mind [1987]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: Rowlands (an externalist) agrees, and this strikes me as correct, and it needs to be one of the fixed points in any assessment of externalism. |
| 8872 | It is widely supposed that externalism cannot be reconciled with first-person authority [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It has been widely supposed that externalism, which holds that the contents of a person's propositional attitudes are partly determined by factors of which the person may be ignorant, cannot be reconciled with first-person authority. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Epistemology Externalized [1990], p.197) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly a bit puzzling if you go around saying 'Actually, people don't know their own thoughts'. Davidson aims to defend first-person authority. The full story is developed in Tyler Burge's views on 'anti-individualism'. |
| 8874 | It is hard to interpret a speaker's actions if we take a broad view of the content [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It will explain a speaker's actions far better if we interpret him as he intended to be interpreted, than if we suppose he means and thinks what someone else might mean and think who used the same words 'correctly'. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Epistemology Externalized [1990], p.199) | |
| A reaction: This comes down to the fact that our actions have to be motivated by internal meanings. If I defer to experts on the essence of gold, I still buy gold according to how I myself understand it. So meaning has two components? |
| 3984 | The nature of content is entirely based on its functional role [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All attributions of content are founded on an appreciation of the functional roles of the items in question. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: This seems wrong to me. How can anything's nature be its function? It must have intrinsic characteristics in order to have the function. This is an evasion. |
| 11144 | Concepts are only possible in a language community [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: A private attitude is not intelligible except as an adjustment to the public norms provided by language. It follows that a creature must be a member of speech community if it is to have the concept of belief. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.170) | |
| A reaction: This obviously draws on Wittgenstein's private language argument, and strikes me as blatantly wrong, because I take higher animals to have concepts without language. Pure vision gives rise to concepts. I don't even think they are necessarily conscious. |
| 4882 | Concepts are things we (unlike dogs) can think about, because we have language [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: A dog cannot consider its concepts. Concepts are not things in a dog's world in the way that cats are. Concepts are things in our world, because we have language. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Dogs must have concepts, though, or much of their behaviour (like desperation to go for a walk, or to eat) is baffling. This is as good a proposal as I have ever encountered for the value of language. Meta-thought is a huge evolutionary advantage. |
| 2529 | Maybe there can be non-conscious concepts (e.g. in bees) [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Concepts do not require consciousness. As Jaynes says, the bee has a concept of a flower, but not a conscious concept. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainchildren [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Does the flower have a concept of rain? Rain plays a big functional role in its existence. It depends, alas, on what we mean by a 'concept'. |
| 6387 | A minimum requirement for a theory of meaning is that it include an account of truth [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Whatever else it embraces, a theory of meaning must include an account of truth - a statement of the conditions under which an arbitrary sentence of the language is true. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.132) | |
| A reaction: It is a moot point whether we can define meaning if we assume truth, or if we can define truth by assuming meaning. Tarski seems to presuppose meaning when he defines truth (Idea 2345). I like Davidson's taking of truth as basic. |
| 19149 | If we reject corresponding 'facts', we should also give up the linked idea of 'representations' [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If we give up facts that make entities true, we ought to give up representations at the same time, for the legitimacy of each depends on the legitimacy of the other. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this, because I'm not sure I know what he means by 'representations'. Surely every sentence is 'about' something? Is that just the references within the sentence, but not the sentence as a whole? |
| 19163 | You only understand an order if you know what it is to obey it [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We understand an imperative if and only if we know under what conditions what it orders or commands is obeyed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: How could this be wrong? 'Do you understand the order?' 'Yes sir!' 'Well do it then!' 'Do what sir?' |
| 15160 | Davidson rejected ordinary meaning, and just used truth and reference instead [Davidson, by Soames] |
| Full Idea: Davidson held that knowledge of truth and reference could give us a notion of meaning. He embraced Quine's rejection of analyticity, synonymy and ordinary meaning, and substituted truth and reference, when there was something genuine to capture. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Semantics for Natural Languages [1970]) by Scott Soames - Philosophy of Language 2.3 | |
| A reaction: I always get a warm glow when anyone suggests that the concept of meaning involves the concept of truth. I largely reject Quine. Davidson made a helpful suggestion! |
| 14612 | Davidson aimed to show that language is structured by first-order logic [Davidson, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's program was to show the underlying structure of natural languages as that of first-order logic. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Semantics for Natural Languages [1970], 2) by J.J.C. Smart - The Tenseless Theory of Time 2 | |
| A reaction: First order logic just reasons about a domain of objects with predicates attached to them. Language appears to refer to properties and relations as well as objects. |
| 4041 | Sentences held true determine the meanings of the words they contain [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Sentences held true (the linguistic representatives of beliefs) determine the meanings of the words they contain. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Method of Truth in Metaphysics [1977], §II) | |
| A reaction: Maybe. Historically, truth and belief presumably precede words and sentences. But words separate off from beliefs very easily. I'm not convinced. Words initiate language, not beliefs? |
| 6391 | A theory of truth tells us how communication by language is possible [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: A theory of truth lets us answer the underlying question how communication by language is possible. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.137) | |
| A reaction: If, instead, you explain communication by understood intentions (á la Grice), you have to say more about what sort of intentions are meant. If you use reference, you still have more to say about the meaning of sentences. Davidson looks good. |
| 23289 | Knowing the potential truth conditions of a sentence is necessary and sufficient for understanding [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is clear that someone who knows under what conditions a sentence would be true understands that sentence, …and if someone does not know under what conditions it would be true then they do not understand it. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.13) | |
| A reaction: I've always subscribed to this view. Langauge is meaningless if you can't relate it to reality, and I don't think there could be a language without an intuitive notion of truth. |
| 19152 | Utterances have the truth conditions intended by the speaker [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: An utterance has certain truth conditions only if the speaker intends it to be interpreted as having those truth conditions. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a concession to the rather sensible things that Grice said about meaning. What about malapropisms? Surely there the speaker does not understand the truth conditions of her own utterance? Truth conditions are in the head? |
| 19162 | Meaning involves use, but a sentence has many uses, while meaning stays fixed [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Meaning depends on use, but it is not easy to say how, for uses to which we may put the utterance of a sentence are endless while its meaning remains fixed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. The password is 'Swordfish' (or 'Sweet marjoram', if you prefer). |
| 6395 | An understood sentence can be used for almost anything; it isn't language if it has only one use [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Once a sentence is understood, an utterance of it may be used to serve almost any extra-linguistic purpose; an instrument that could be put to only one use would lack autonomy of meaning, which means it should not be counted as language. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.17) | |
| A reaction: I find this point very appealing, in opposition to the Wittgenstein view of meaning as use. Passwords seem to me a striking case of the separation of meaning and use. I like the phrase 'autonomy of meaning'. Random sticks can form a word. |
| 23290 | It could be that the use of a sentence is explained by its truth conditions [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It may be that sentences are used as they are because of their truth conditions, and they have the truth conditions they do because of how they are used. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth Rehabilitated [1997], p.13) | |
| A reaction: I've always taken the attempt to explain meaning by use as absurd. It is similar to trying to explain mind in terms of function. In each case, what is the intrinsic nature of the thing, which makes that use or that function possible? |
| 19131 | We recognise sentences at once as linguistic units; we then figure out their parts [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Our interest in the parts of sentences is derivative; we recognise at once that sentences are effective linguistic units, while we must figure out or decide what constitutes the meaningful words and particles. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It depends on whether linguistic priority goes to complete thoughts that require expression, or to naming and ostensive definition to relate to elements of the environment. I find it hard to have a strong view on this one. Just So stories? |
| 6394 | The pattern of sentences held true gives sentences their meaning [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Although most utterances are not concerned with truth, it is the pattern of sentences held true that gives sentences their meaning. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.14) | |
| A reaction: Davidson's distinctive version of meaning holism, as opposed to Quine's rather behaviouristic version. I agree that we relate to people through the pattern of sentences they hold true, but I am unconvinced that this 'gives sentences their meaning'. |
| 6388 | Is reference the key place where language and the world meet? [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The essential question is whether reference is the, or at least one, place where there is direct contact between linguistic theory and events, actions, or objects described in nonlinguistic terms. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.134) | |
| A reaction: How do you 'describe objects in nonlinguistic terms'? The causal theory of reference (e.g. Idea 4957) is designed to plug language straight into the world via reference. It simplifies things nicely, but I don't quite believe it. |
| 6390 | With a holistic approach, we can give up reference in empirical theories of language [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: I defend a version of the holistic approach, and urge that we must give up the concept of reference as basic to an empirical theory of language. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.136) | |
| A reaction: He proposes to connect language to the world via the concept of truth, rather than of reference. It is a brilliant idea, and is the key issue in philosophy of language. I go back to animals, which seem to care about situations rather than things. |
| 6389 | To explain the reference of a name, you must explain its sentence-role, so reference can't be defined nonlinguistically [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is inconceivable that one should be able to explain the relationship between 'Kilimanjiro' and Kilimanjiro without first explaining the role of the word in sentences; hence there is no chance of explaining reference directly in nonlinguistic terms. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.135) | |
| A reaction: I point at the mountain, and a local says 'Kilimanjiro'? There is a 'gavagai'-type problem with that. The prior question might be 'what is it about this word that enables it to have a role in sentences?' Unlike whimpering or belching. |
| 19156 | Modern predicates have 'places', and are sentences with singular terms deleted from the places [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The notion of 'places' in a predicate is the key to the modern concept of a predicate. Any expression obtained from a sentence by deleting one or more singular terms from the sentence counts as a predicate. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 4) |
| 19176 | The concept of truth can explain predication [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My strategy is to show how our grasp of the concept of truth can explain predication. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 7) | |
| A reaction: His account of the concept of truth centres on Tarski's theory, but he clearly thinks more is needed than the bare bones offered by Tarski. The point, I think, is that predication is what makes a sentence 'truth-apt'. |
| 7772 | Compositionality explains how long sentences work, and truth conditions are the main compositional feature [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's main argument in favour of his truth conditions theory of meaning is that compositionality is needed to account for our understanding of long, novel sentences, and a sentence's truth condition is its most obviously compositional feature. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me exactly right. As we hear a new long sentence unfold, we piece together the meaning. At the end we may spot that the meaning is silly, or an unverifiable speculation, or not what the speaker intended - but it is too late! It means. |
| 19133 | If you assign semantics to sentence parts, the sentence fails to compose a whole [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The puzzle is that once plausible assignments of semantic roles have been made to parts of sentences, the parts do not seem to compose a united whole. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It's not clear to me that a sentence does compose a 'whole', given that you can often add or remove bits from sentences, sometimes without changing the meaning. We often, in speech, assemble sentences before we have thought of their full meaning. |
| 7327 | Davidson thinks Frege lacks an account of how words create sentence-meaning [Davidson, by Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: Davidson thinks that Frege's model for a theory of semantic value (and thereby for a systematic theory of sense) is unsatisfactory, because it provides no useful or explanatory account of how sentence-meaning can be a function of word-meaning. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 8.1 | |
| A reaction: Put like that, it is not clear to me how you could even start to explain how word-meaning contributes to sentence meaning. Try speaking any sentence slowly, and observe how the sentence meaning builds up. Truth is, of course, relevant. |
| 7331 | A theory of meaning comes down to translating sentences into Fregean symbolic logic [Davidson, by Macey] |
| Full Idea: For a theory of meaning for a fragment of natural language, what Davidson requires, in effect, is that the sentences be translatable into the language of Frege's symbolic logic. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (In Defence of Convention T [1973]) by David Macey - Penguin Dictionary of Critical Theory | |
| A reaction: This assumes the adequacy of Fregean logic, which seems unlikely. Is this the culmination of Leibniz's dream of a fully logical language - so that anything that won't fit into our logical form is ruled (logical positivist style) as meaningless? |
| 19132 | Top-down semantic analysis must begin with truth, as it is obvious, and explains linguistic usage [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Truth is the essential semantic concept with which to begin a top-down analysis of sentences, since truth, or lack of it, is the most obvious semantic property of sentences, and provides the clearest explanation of judging and conveying information. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [a bit compressed] Presumably this goes with giving sentences semantic priority. The alternative approach is compositional, and is likely to give reference of terms priority over truth of the sentence. But accurate reference is a sort of truth. |
| 7769 | You can state truth-conditions for "I am sick now" by relativising it to a speaker at a time [Davidson, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's response to the problem of how you would state truth conditions for "I am sick now" ...is to relativize its truth to a particular speaker and a time. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967]) by William Lycan - Philosophy of Language Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Lycan is not happy with this, but it seems a reasonable way to treat the truth of any statement containing indexicals. Never mind the 'truth conditions theory of meaning' - just ask whether "I am sick now" is true. |
| 19158 | 'Humanity belongs to Socrates' is about humanity, so it's a different proposition from 'Socrates is human' [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The sentence 'Humanity belongs to Socrates' is about the concept of humanity, unlike the "equivalent" 'Socrates is human', so they express different propositions. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I like this a lot, because it shows why we should focus on propositions rather than on sentences, or even utterances. And asking what the sentence is 'about' focuses us on the underlying proposition or thought. |
| 3968 | Propositions explain nothing without an explanation of how sentences manage to name them [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a proposition is unhelpful, until it is explained how exactly the words in the contained sentence manage to name or describe a proposition (which even Frege failed to achieve). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
| A reaction: It seems obvious to me that there are brain events best labelled as propositions, even if their fit with language is puzzling. |
| 8870 | Content of thought is established through communication, so knowledge needs other minds [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Until a baseline has been established by communication with someone else, there is no point is saying one's own thoughts have a propositional content. Hence knowledge of another mind is essential all thought and all knowledge. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.213) | |
| A reaction: This really is building a skyscraper on the slightly shaky claims of the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). Animals are so important in discussions of this kind. Is an albatross more or less devoid of thought and belief? |
| 3970 | Thought is only fully developed if we communicate with others [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We would have no fully-fledge thoughts if we were not in communication with others. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
| A reaction: This seems a plausible empirical observation, though I would doubt any a priori proof of it. If animals could speak, they would become intellectuals? |
| 6179 | Should we assume translation to define truth, or the other way around? [Blackburn on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The concern of some philosophers has been expressed by saying that whereas Tarski took translation for granted, and sought to understand truth, Davidson takes truth for granted, and seeks to understand translation. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (Truth and Meaning [1967]) by Simon Blackburn - Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy p.82 | |
| A reaction: We can just say that the two concepts are interdependent, but my personal intuitions side with Davidson. If you are going to take something as fundamental and axiomatic, truth looks a better bet than translation. |
| 6399 | Criteria of translation give us the identity of conceptual schemes [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Studying the criteria of translation is a way of focusing on criteria of identity for conceptual schemes. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme [1974], p.184) | |
| A reaction: This is why it was an inspired idea of Quine's to make translation a central topic in philosophy. We must be cautious, though, about saying that the language is the conceptual scheme, as that leaves animals with no scheme at all. |
| 8869 | The principle of charity attributes largely consistent logic and largely true beliefs to speakers [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Concerning charity, the Principle of Coherence seeks logical consistency in the thought of the speaker, and the Principle of Correspondence seeks a similar response to features of the world to that of an interpreter. The speaker has logic and true belief. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.211) | |
| A reaction: Davidson adds a Kantian commitment to pure and universal reason to the very sceptical framework created by Quine. I agree with Davidson, but it seems more like faith than like an argument or an empirical observation. |
| 3971 | There is simply no alternative to the 'principle of charity' in interpreting what others do [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The 'principle of charity' is a misleading term, since there is no alternative if we want to make sense of the attitudes and actions of the agents around us. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
| A reaction: I suppose so, but only with a background of evolutionary theory. I would necessarily assume charity if a robot spoke to me. |
| 19154 | The principle of charity says an interpreter must assume the logical constants [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The principle of charity says that it is unavoidable that the pattern of sentences to which a speaker assents reflects the semantics of the logical constants. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: That is not all the principle says, of course. Davidson seems to assume classical logic here, with a bivalent semantics. I wonder if all speakers use 'false' in the normal way, as well as 'true'? Do all languages even contain 'true'? |
| 18703 | Davidson's Cogito: 'I think, therefore I am generally right' [Davidson, by Button] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's Cogito has the form 'I think, therefore I am generally right'. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], 16.6) by Tim Button - The Limits of Reason | |
| A reaction: On the whole I would subscribe to this Cogito (as Button calls it), from an evolutionary perspective. There would just be no point in thought if it wasn't generally right in everyday activity. |
| 7776 | Metaphors just mean what their words literally mean [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphors mean what the words, in their most literal interpretation, mean, and nothing more. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.30) | |
| A reaction: This pronouncement must be the result of Davidson anguishing over the truth conditions for metaphors, which are usually either taken to have a 'metaphorical meaning', or to be abbreviated similes. He solved his problem at a stroke! Plausible. |
| 7775 | Understanding a metaphor is a creative act, with no rules [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Understanding a metaphor is as much a creative endeavour as making a metaphor, and as little guided by rules. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.29) | |
| A reaction: This is good news for literature studies courses. Davidson's point is that the metaphor itself only gives you a literal meaning, so it doesn't tell you how to interpret it. It seems an attractive proposal. |
| 19161 | We indicate use of a metaphor by its obvious falseness, or trivial truth [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The sentences that contain metaphors are typically obviously false or trivially true, because these are typically indications that something is intended as a metaphor. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Truth and Predication [2005], 6) | |
| A reaction: A nice point which sounds correct. Metaphors are famous being false, but the 'obvious' falseness signals the metaphor. If a metaphor is only obscurely false, that makes it difficult to read. |
| 7777 | We accept a metaphor when we see the sentence is false [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is only when a sentence is taken to be false that we accept it as a metaphor. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (What Metaphors Mean [1978], p.40) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very nice and true generalisation, even though Davidson mentions "no man is an island" as a counterexample. We thirst for meaning, and switch to a second meaning when the first one looks peculiar. |
| 20020 | If one action leads directly to another, they are all one action [Davidson, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Davidson (1980 ess 1) agreed with Anscombe that if a person Fs by G-ing, then her act F = her act G. For example, if someone accidentally alerts a burglar, by deliberately turning on a light, by flipping a switch, these are all the same action. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 1.2 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought there was obviously a strong conventional element in individuating actions, depending on interest. An electrician is only interest in whether the light worked. The police are only interested in the disturbance of the burglar. |
| 20072 | We explain an intention by giving an account of acting with an intention [Davidson, by Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: The early Davidson championed the approach that we explain the idea of having an intention by providing an account of what it is to act with an intention. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Rowland Stout - Action 7 'Conclusion' | |
| A reaction: This eliminates the distinction between a prior intention, and the intention that maintains a process such as speech. It sounds almost behaviourist. |
| 20076 | An intending is a judgement that the action is desirable [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We can identify an intentional action ...with an all-out conditional judgement that the action is desirable. ...In the case of pure intending, I now suggest that the intention simply is an all-out judgement. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intending [1978], p.99), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's' | |
| A reaction: 'Pure' intending seems to be what Stout calls 'prior' intending, which is clearer. This still strikes me as obviously false. I judge that it is desirable that I make a cup of coffee, but secretly I'm hoping someone else will make it for me. |
| 20074 | We can keep Davidson's account of intentions in action, by further explaining prior intentions [Davidson, by Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's original account of intentions might still stand if we could accept that prior intentions are different in kind from intentions with which one acts. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Problems in the Explanation of Action [1987]) by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's' | |
| A reaction: Davidson says prior intention is all-out judgement of desirability. Prior intentions are more deliberate, with the other intentions as a presumed background to action. Compare Sartre's dual account of the self. |
| 20024 | Davidson gave up reductive accounts of intention, and said it was a primitive [Davidson, by Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Later Davidson dropped his reductive treatment of intentions (in terms of 'pro-attitudes' and other beliefs), and accepted that intentions are irreducible, and distinct from pro-attitudes. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Intending [1978]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2 | |
| A reaction: Only a philosopher would say that intentions cannot be reduced to something else. Since I have a very physicalist view of the mind, I incline to reduce them to powers and dispositions of physical matter. |
| 6385 | The causally strongest reason may not be the reason the actor judges to be best [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: I defend my causal view of action by arguing that a reason that is causally strongest need not be a reason deemed by the actor to provide the strongest (best) grounds for acting. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xii) | |
| A reaction: If I smoke a cigarette against my better judgement, it is not clear to me how the desire to smoke it, which overcomes my judgement not to smoke it, counts as the causally strongest 'reason'. We seem to have two different senses of 'reason' here. |
| 20045 | Acting for a reason is a combination of a pro attitude, and a belief that the action is appropriate [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Whenever someone does something for a reason he can be characterised as (a) having some sort of pro attitude towards action of a certain kind, and (b) believing (or knowing, perceiving, noticing, remembering) that his action is of that kind. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963], p.3-4), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 3 'The belief-' | |
| A reaction: This is the earlier Davidson roughly endorsing the traditional belief-desire account of action. He is giving a reductive account of reasons. Deciding reasons were not reducible may have led him to property dualism. |
| 6384 | The notion of cause is essential to acting for reasons, intentions, agency, akrasia, and free will [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that the ordinary notion of cause is essential to understanding what it is to act with a reason, to have an intention to act, to be an agent, to act counter to one's own best judgement, or to act freely. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: I cautiously agree, particularly with idea that causation is essential to acting as an agent. Since I believe 'free will' to be a complete delusion, that part of his thesis doesn't interest me. The hard part is understanding acting for a reason. |
| 23734 | The best explanation of reasons as purposes for actions is that they are causal [Davidson, by Smith,M] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argues that the best interpretation of the teleological character of reason explanations is an intepretation in causal terms. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Michael Smith - The Moral Problem 4.4 | |
| A reaction: That is, this is the explanation of someone doing something 'because' they have this reason (rather than happening to have a reason). Smith observes that other mental states (such as beliefs) may also have this causal power. |
| 23737 | Reasons can give purposes to actions, without actually causing them [Smith,M on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Only the Humean theory is able to make sense of reason explanation as a species of teleological explanation, and one may accept that reason explanations are teleological without accepting that they are causal. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Michael Smith - The Moral Problem 4.6 | |
| A reaction: That is, reasons can give a purpose to an action, and thereby motivate it, without actually causing it. I agree with Smith. I certainly don't (usually, at least) experience reasons as directly producing my actions. Hume says desires are needed. |
| 20075 | Early Davidson says intentional action is caused by reasons [Davidson, by Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: In Davidson's earlier approach, intentional action requires causation by reasons. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Weakness' | |
| A reaction: A very Kantian idea, and one that seems to bestow causal powers on something which I take to be highly abstract. Thus Davidson was wrong (but in a nice way). |
| 6664 | Reasons must be causes when agents act 'for' reasons [Davidson, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It can be argued (by Davidson) that far from it being the case that reasons for and causes of action are quite distinct, reasons must be causes when agents act 'for' reasons. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Lowe argues against this view. The rival views to Davidson would be either that reasons are no more than desires-plus-beliefs in disguise, or that the will causes actions, and strong reasons carry a great weight with the will. I like the will. |
| 19698 | Deviant causal chain: a reason causes an action, but isn't the reason for which it was performed [Davidson, by Neta] |
| Full Idea: A 'deviant causal chain' is when an agent has a reason for performing an action, and for the reason to cause the performance, without that being the reason for which the agent performed it. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Freedom to Act [1973]) by Ram Neta - The Basing Relation II | |
| A reaction: Davidson's thesis is that 'reasons are causes'. This was a problem he faced. I think this discussion is now obscured by the complex and multi-layered account of action which is emerging from neuroscience. |
| 3395 | Davidson claims that what causes an action is the reason for doing it [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson defends the simple thesis that the reason for which an action is done is the one that causes it, …which means that agency is possible only if mental causation is possible. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.127 |
| 3983 | Learning is evolution in the brain [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Learning is evolution in the brain. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.238) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather non-conscious, associationist view, connected to Dawkins' idea of 'memes'. It seems at least partially correct. |
| 3973 | Without a teacher, the concept of 'getting things right or wrong' is meaningless [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Without a 'teacher', nothing would give content to the idea that there is a difference between getting things right and getting them wrong. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.234) | |
| A reaction: Seems right. A group of speculators with no one in the role of 'teacher' would seem to be paralysed with uncertain (except where judgements are very obvious). |
| 4872 | Most people see an abortion differently if the foetus lacks a brain [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If a fetus that is being considered for abortion is known to be anencephalic (lacking a brain), this dramatically changes the issue for most people, though not for all. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A very effective point, as it is hard to see what grounds could be given for not aborting in this case. But the brain then clearly becomes the focus of why abortion is often rejected by many people. |
| 7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: In the beginning there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing had so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all. The explanation is simple: there was nothing that had interests. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems reasonable to talk of functions even if the fledgling 'interests' are unconscious, as in a leaf. Is a process leading to an end an 'interest'? What are the 'interests' of a person who is about to commit suicide? |
| 8873 | The cause of a usage determines meaning, but why is the microstructure of water relevant? [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: While I agree that the usual cause of the use of the word determines what it means, I do not see why sameness of microstructure is necessarily the relevant similarity that determines my reference of the word 'water'. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Epistemology Externalized [1990], p.198) | |
| A reaction: This is a problem for essentialists who build their views on semantic considerations. But the stability of what causes 'water' thoughts is the microstructure of water. However, that is an explantion of meaning, not a definition of it. |
| 10371 | Distinguish causation, which is in the world, from explanations, which depend on descriptions [Davidson, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Davidson distinguishes between causation, an extensional relation that holds between coarse events, and explanation, which is an intensional relation that holds between the coarse events under a description. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm unclear why everything has to be so coarse, when reality and causal events seem to fine-grained, but the distinction strikes me as good. Explanations relate to human understanding and human interests. Cf. Anscombe's view. |
| 8403 | Either facts, or highly unspecific events, serve better as causes than concrete events [Field,H on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It is best to avoid Davidson's view that only quite concrete events can serve as causes; we should either say that facts as well as events can serve as causes; or that the events can be highly unspecific, including 'omissions'. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967]) by Hartry Field - Causation in a Physical World 1 | |
| A reaction: Something NOT happening might be the main cause of an effect (drought), or an effect may mainly result from a situation rather than an event (famine). |
| 3524 | Causation is either between events, or between descriptions of events [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: According to Davidson analyses of causality proceed at two different levels: at the lower level it holds between events regardless of how they are described; higher level explanations hold between descriptions of events, which pick out properties. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.4 |
| 3526 | Whether an event is a causal explanation depends on how it is described [Davidson, by Maslin] |
| Full Idea: Davidson says causal explanations hold between descriptions of events and not between the events themselves, so the possibility of events as explanations depends on how they are described (e.g. a wind collapsing a bridge). | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Mental Events [1970]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 7.4 |
| 8346 | Full descriptions can demonstrate sufficiency of cause, but not necessity [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The fuller we make the description of a cause, the better our chances of demonstrating that it was sufficient (as described) to produce the effect, and the worse our chances of demonstrating that it was necessary. (For the effect, it is the opposite). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967], §3) | |
| A reaction: If the fullness of description is relevant, this suggests that Davidson is focusing on human explanations, rather than on the ontology of causation. If the cause IS necessary, why wouldn't a better description make that clearer? |
| 4778 | A singular causal statement is true if it is held to fall under a law [Davidson, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: For Davidson, what makes singular causal statements true is the existence of some regularities or laws. All causal is nomological: c causes e iff there is a law that connects events like c with events like e. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §2.6 | |
| A reaction: I wonder if the cart is before the horse here. Scriven says this is just a claim that there are "phantom laws". It is the Humean view of causation, but surely the laws come after the causation, so can't be used to explain it? |
| 3962 | Cause and effect relations between events must follow strict laws [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If two events are related as cause and effect, there is a strict law under which they may be subsumed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: Davidson admits that this is open to challenge (though Hume and Kant supported it). It does seem to be central to our understanding of nature. |
| 3985 | Biology is a type of engineering, not a search for laws of nature [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Biology is not a science like physics, in which one should strive to find 'laws of nature', but a species of engineering. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: Yes. This is also true of chemistry, which has always struck me as minitiarised car mechanics. |
| 4877 | Maybe plants are very slow (and sentient) animals, overlooked because we are faster? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Might plants just be 'very slow animals', enjoying sentience that has been overlooked by us because of our human timescale chauvinism? | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Delightful thought, arising from pondering the significance of the speed of operation of the brain. I think it is false, because I think high speed is essential to mind, and Dennett seems not to. |
| 3804 | Darwin's idea was the best idea ever [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I'd give it to Darwin. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Darwin's Dangerous Idea [1995], §1.1) |