66 ideas
| 23966 | The personal view can still be objective, so I call sciences 'impersonal', rather than objective [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: 'Objective' is misleading because it is possible to be, from a personal point of view, more or less objective; objectivity admits of degrees… I prefer to speak of sciences as 'impersonal', because the personal view is lost. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This evidently relates to Perry's claim that the world contains additional indexical facts. I think I agree with this thought. Objectivity is a mode of subjectivity. Thermometers are not 'objective'. Physics is certainly impersonal. |
| 9456 | Modal logic is multiple systems, shown in the variety of accessibility relations between worlds [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Modal logic by its very nature is not monolithic, but fragmented into multiple systems of modal qualifications, reflected in the plurality of accessibility relations on modal model structures or logically possible worlds. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §3) | |
| A reaction: He implies the multiplicity is basic, and is only 'reflected' in the relations, but maybe the multiplicity is caused by incompetent logicians who can't decide whether possible worlds really are reflexive or symmetrical or transitive in their relations. |
| 7689 | The modal logic of C.I.Lewis was only interpreted by Kripke and Hintikka in the 1960s [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The modal syntax and axiom systems of C.I.Lewis (1918) were formally interpreted by Kripke and Hintikka (c.1965) who, using Z-F set theory, worked out model set-theoretical semantics for modal logics and quantified modal logics. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A historical note. The big question is always 'who cares?' - to which the answer seems to be 'lots of people', if they are interested in precision in discourse, in artificial intelligence, and maybe even in metaphysics. Possible worlds started here. |
| 9457 | The two main views in philosophy of logic are extensionalism and intensionalism [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy of logic has (roughly) two camps: extensionalists and intensionalists, with the former view dominant. ...There is a close connection between this and eliminativist or reductivist versus folk psychological and intentionalist philosophy of mind. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I think I favour intensionalism in the logic, and reductivism about the mind, so I may have a bit of bother here. I'm convinced that this jigsaw can be completed, despite all appearances. |
| 7681 | Logic describes inferences between sentences expressing possible properties of objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: It is fundamental that logic depends on logical possibilities, in which logically possible properties are predicated of logically possible objects. Logic describes inferential structures among sentences expressing the predication of properties to objects. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: If our imagination is the only tool we have for assessing possibilities, this leaves the domain of logic as being a bit subjective. There is an underlying Platonism to the idea, since inferences would exist even if nothing else did. |
| 9463 | Classical logic is bivalent, has excluded middle, and only quantifies over existent objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Classical logic (of Whitehead, Russell, Gödel, Church) is a two-valued system of propositional and predicate logic, in which all propositions are exclusively true or false, and quantification and predication are over existent objects only. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to I: Classical Logic [2002], p.9) | |
| A reaction: All of these get challenged at some point, though the existence requirement is the one I find dubious. |
| 7682 | Logic is not just about signs, because it relates to states of affairs, objects, properties and truth-values [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: At one level logic can be regarded as a theory of signs and formal rules, but we cannot neglect the meaning of propositions as they relate to states of affairs, and hence to possible properties and objects... there must be the possibility of truth-values. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Thus if you define logical connectives by truth tables, you need the concept of T and F. You could, though, regard those too as purely formal (like 1 and 0 in electronics). But how do you decide which propositions are 1, and which are 0? |
| 7697 | On Russell's analysis, the sentence "The winged horse has wings" comes out as false [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: It is infamous that on Russell's analysis the sentences "The winged horse has wings" and "The winged horse is a horse" are false, because in the extant domain of actual existent entities there contingently exist no winged horses | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the best objection I have heard to Russell's account of definite descriptions. The connected question is whether 'quantifies over' is really a commitment to existence. See Idea 6067. |
| 9466 | Nominalists like substitutional quantification to avoid the metaphysics of objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Some substitutional quantificationists in logic hope to avoid philosophical entanglements about the metaphysics of objects, ..and nominalists can find aid and comfort there. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to III: Quantifiers [2002], p.143) | |
| A reaction: This has an appeal for me, particularly if it avoids abstract objects, but I don't see much problem with material objects, so we might as well have a view that admits those. |
| 9465 | Substitutional universal quantification retains truth for substitution of terms of the same type [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The substitutional interpretation says the universal quantifier is true just in case it remains true for all substitutions of terms of the same type as that of the universally bound variable. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to III: Quantifiers [2002], p.143) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to tell us how it gets started with being true. |
| 9458 | Extensionalists say that quantifiers presuppose the existence of their objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Extensionalists hold that quantifiers in predicate logic presuppose the existence of whatever objects can be referred to by constants or bound variables, or enter into true predication of properties. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: I have strong sales resistance to this view. Why should a procedure for correctly reasoning from one proposition to another have anything whatever to do with ontology? A false world picture can be interconnected by perfect logic. |
| 9461 | Intensionalists say meaning is determined by the possession of properties [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: According to intensionalist semantics the meaning of a proposition is determined by the properties an object possesses. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds good to me. Extensionalist don't seem to care what sets they put things in, but if property possession comes first, then things will fall into their own sets without any help for us. We can add silly sets afterwards, if we fancy. |
| 7701 | Can a Barber shave all and only those persons who do not shave themselves? [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The Barber Paradox refers to the non-existent property of being a barber who shaves all and only those persons who do not shave themselves. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: [Russell spotted this paradox, and it led to his Theory of Types]. This paradox may throw light on the logic of indexicals. What does "you" mean when I say to myself "you idiot!"? If I can behave as two persons, so can the barber. |
| 7707 | To grasp being, we must say why something exists, and why there is one world [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: We grasp the concept of being only when we have satisfactorily answered the question why there is something rather than nothing and why there is only one logically contingent actual world. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Conclusion) | |
| A reaction: See Ideas 7688 and 7692 for a glimpse of Jacquette's answer. Personally I don't yet have a full grasp of the concept of being, but I'm sure I'll get there if I only work a bit harder. |
| 7692 | Being is maximal consistency [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Being is maximal consistency. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: You'll have to read Ch.2 of Jacquette to see what this is all about, but as it stands it is a lovely slogan, and a wonderful googly/curve ball to propel at Parmenides or Heidegger. |
| 7687 | Existence is completeness and consistency [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: A combinatorial ontology holds that existence is nothing more or less than completeness and consistency, or what is also called 'maximal consistency'. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: You'll have to read Jacquette to understand this one! The claim is that existence is to be defined in terms of logic (and whatever is required for logic). I take this to be a bit Platonist (rather than conventionalist) about logic. |
| 7679 | Ontology is the same as the conceptual foundations of logic [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The principles of pure philosophical ontology are indistinguishable ... from the conceptual foundations of logic. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I would take Russell to be an originator of this view. If the young Wittgenstein showed that the foundations of logic are simply conventional (truth tables), this seems to make ontology conventional too, which sounds very odd indeed (to me). |
| 7678 | Ontology must include the minimum requirements for our semantics [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The entities included in a theoretical ontology are those minimally required for an adequate philosophical semantics. ...These are the objects that we say exist, to which we are ontologically committed. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Worded with exquisite care! He does not say that ontology is reducible to semantics (which is a silly idea). We could still be committed, as in a ghost story, to existence of some 'nameless thing'. Things utterly beyond our ken might exist. |
| 7683 | Logic is based either on separate objects and properties, or objects as combinations of properties [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Logic involves the possibilities of predicating properties of objects in a conceptual scheme wherein either objects and properties are included in altogether separate categories, or objects are reducible to combinations of properties. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: In the first view, he says that objects are just 'logical pegs' for properties. Objects can't be individuated without properties. But combinations of properties would seem to need essences, or else they are too unstable to count as objects. |
| 7684 | Reduce states-of-affairs to object-property combinations, and possible worlds to states-of-affairs [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: We can reduce references to states-of-affairs to object-property combinations, and we can reduce logically possible worlds to logically possible states-of-affairs combinations. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: If we further reduce object-property combinations to mere combinations of properties (Idea 7683), then we have reduced our ontology to nothing but properties. Wow. We had better be very clear, then, about what a property is. I'm not. |
| 7703 | If classes can't be eliminated, and they are property combinations, then properties (universals) can't be either [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: If classes alone cannot be eliminated from ontology on Quine's terms, and if classes are defined as property combinations, then neither are all properties, universals in the tradition sense, entirely eliminable. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: If classes were totally conventional (and there was no such things as a 'natural' class) then you might admit something to a class without knowing its properties (as 'the thing in the box'). |
| 7685 | An object is a predication subject, distinguished by a distinctive combination of properties [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: To be an object is to be a predication subject, and to be this as opposed to that particular object, whether existent or not, is to have a distinctive combination of properties. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: The last part depends on Leibniz's Law. The difficulty is that two objects may only be distinguishable by being in different places, and location doesn't look like a property. Cf. Idea 5055. |
| 7699 | Numbers, sets and propositions are abstract particulars; properties, qualities and relations are universals [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Roughly, numbers, sets and propositions are assumed to be abstract particulars, while properties, including qualities and relations, are usually thought to be universals. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: There is an interesting nominalist project of reducing all of these to particulars. Numbers to patterns, sets to their members, propositions to sentences, properties to causal powers, relations to, er, something else. |
| 7691 | The actual world is a consistent combination of states, made of consistent property combinations [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The actual world is a maximally consistent state-of-affairs combination involving all and only the existent objects, which in turn exist because they are maximally consistent property combinations. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: [This extends Idea 7688]. This seems to invite the standard objections to the coherence theory of truth, such as Ideas 5422 and 4745. Is 'maximal consistency' merely a test for actuality, rather than an account of what actuality is? |
| 7688 | The actual world is a maximally consistent combination of actual states of affairs [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The actual world can be defined as a maximally consistent combination of actual states of affairs, or maximally consistent states-of-affairs combination. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A key part of Jacquette's program of deriving ontological results from the foundations of logic. Is the counterfactual situation of my pen being three centimetres to the left of its current position a "less consistent" situation than the actual one? |
| 7695 | Do proposition-structures not associated with the actual world deserve to be called worlds? [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Many modal logicians in their philosophical moments have raised doubts about whether structures of propositions not associated with the actual world deserved to be called worlds at all. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A good question. Consistency is obviously required, but we also need a lot of propositions before we would consider it a 'world'. Very remote but consistent worlds quickly become unimaginable. Does that matter? |
| 7694 | We must experience the 'actual' world, which is defined by maximally consistent propositions [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Conventional modal semantics, in which all logically possible worlds are defined in terms of maximally consistent proposition sets, has no choice except to allow that the actual world is the world we experience in sensation, or that we inhabit. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Jacquette dislikes this because he is seeking an account of ontology that doesn't, as so often, merely reduce to epistemology (e.g. Berkeley). See Idea 7691 for his preferred account. |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 24005 | We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: We know others' emotions by 1) understanding and explaining them, 2) emotional contagion, 3) empathy, 4) in-his-shoes imagining, and 5) sympathy. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 7 Intro) | |
| A reaction: He says these must be clearly distinguished, because they are often confused. In-his-shoes is 'me in their position', where empathy is how the position is just for them. The Simulationist approach likes these two. Sympathy need not share the feelings. |
| 24006 | Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Empathy and in-his-shoes imagining are not sufficient for sympathy. Nor are they necessary. You can even sympathise with another when these are impossible, with the sufferings of a whale or a dog, for example. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 7 'Sympathy') | |
| A reaction: Goldie is right that these distinct faculties are a blurred muddle in most of our accounts of dealing with other people. Empathy with a whale in not actually impossible, because we recognise their suffering, and we understand suffering. |
| 7706 | If qualia supervene on intentional states, then intentional states are explanatorily fundamental [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: If qualia supervene on intentional states, then intentionality is also more explanatorily fundamental than qualia. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 7272 for opposite view. Maybe intentional states are large mental objects of which we are introspectively aware, but which are actually composed of innumerable fine-grained qualia. Intentional states would only explain qualia if they caused them. |
| 7704 | Reduction of intentionality involving nonexistent objects is impossible, as reduction must be to what is actual [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: If intentionality sometimes involves a relation to nonexistent objects, like my dreamed-of visit to a Greek island, then such thoughts cannot be explained physically or causally, because only actual physical entities and events can be mentioned. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: Unimpressive. Thoughts of a Greek island will obviously reduce to memories of islands and Greece and travel brochures. Memory clearly retains past events in the present, and hence past events can be part of the material used in reductive accounts. |
| 23978 | 'Having an emotion' differs from 'being emotional' [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: There is a contrast in commonsense psychology between 'being emotional' and 'having an emotion'. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: Is this just that being emotional is displaying the existing emotion? Though we say someone is 'being emotional' when the emotion seems to take control of their actions. |
| 23973 | Unlike moods, emotions have specific objects, though the difference is a matter of degree [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Emotions have more specific objects than moods. The difference is a matter of degree, so emotions don't necessarily have a specific object, and moods are not necessarily undirected towards an object, or lacking in intentionality. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Intentionality') | |
| A reaction: Could you simultaneously have an emotion and a mood which were in conflict, such as joy and misery (singing the blues), or love and hate ('odi et amo')? Could one transition into the other, as the object became clear, or faded away? |
| 23974 | Emotional intentionality as belief and desire misses out the necessity of feelings [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers who discuss the intentionality of the emotions seek to capture the intentionality of the emotions in terms of beliefs, or beliefs and desires. I think this is a mistake, and runs the risk of leaving feelings out of emotional experience. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Intentionality') | |
| A reaction: [He gives a list, which includes Kenny and Davidson] I would have thought that desires, at least, necessarily involve feelings, and neuroscientists seem to find emotions everywhere, including as part of belief. Be more holistic? |
| 23972 | A long lasting and evolving emotion is still seen as a single emotion, such as love [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: In narratives the different elements of an emotion are conceived of as all being part of the same emotion, in spite of its complex, episodic and dynamic features. Verbs expressing emotions don not use continuous tenses, such as 'he is being in love'. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'What') | |
| A reaction: Goldie is keen on seeing emotions as part of a life narrative. An intriguing problem for the metaphysics of identity. If someone's love for a person comes and goes, is it the same love each time? |
| 23992 | Some Aborigines have fifteen different words for types of fear [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The Pintupi Aborigines of the Western Australian Desert have no less than fifteen words for different types of fear, including one for a sudden fear which leads one to stand up to see what caused it. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: Reminiscent of the many Inuit words for snow, but this time it is about human experience, rather than the environment. We must assume they can distinguish the different types, so these gradations are real. |
| 23979 | Emotional responses can reveal to us our values, which might otherwise remain hidden [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Our emotional responses can reveal to us what we value, and what we value might not be epistemically accessible to us if we did not have such responses. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: This obviously invites the question of whether the emotion reveals the value, or determines the value. I suspect it is more the latter, because it is hard to see what art (for example) could have for us if we had no emotional responses. |
| 23976 | If we have a 'feeling towards' an object, that gives the recognition a different content [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The content of the recognition in 'feeling towards' is different from the content of the recognition where no emotion is involved. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Education') | |
| A reaction: ['Feeling toward' is Goldie's coinage, to capture the intentionality in felt emotion] Interesting, but not convinced. Maybe the emotion just follows fast after the mere recognition. When I recognise a friend in a crowd, that triggers a feeling. |
| 23977 | When actions are performed 'out of' emotion, they appear to be quite different [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Consider striking a blow or seeking safety unemotionally. Now consider when you act out of emotion: angrily striking the blow, or fearfully running away. The phenomenology of such actions is fundamentally different in character. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Explanation') | |
| A reaction: True, I guess. This has the behaviourist's problem of Superactors and Superspartans, of pretended or suppressed anger or fear. There is a sliding scale from stone cold to frenzied emotion. |
| 23980 | It is best to see emotions holistically, as embedded in a person's life narrative [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The best understanding of a person's emotions …will be holistic in its overall approach, seeing feelings as embedded in an emotion's narrative, as part of a person's life. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 Intro) | |
| A reaction: Sounds reasonable, but I didn't find it very helpful. When told that my Self or my life has a 'narrative' I don't learn much. The concept of narrative relies on selves and lives. Ditto for being told that emotions or language are 'holistic'. |
| 23982 | If emotions are 'towards' things, they can't be bodily feelings, which lack aboutness [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: If emotion has the world-directed intentionality of 'feeling towards' it follows that it is not bodily feeling, for bodily feelings lack the required 'direct' (as contrasted with 'borrowed') intentionality. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 'Towards') | |
| A reaction: This is a direct response to William James's view, and seems correct. It is a widely held view that emotions are usually 'about' something, and it is hard to see how getting red in the face could do that. |
| 24001 | Moods can focus as emotions, and emotions can blur into moods [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: A mood can focus into an emotion, and an emotion can blur out of focus into the non-specificity of mood. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Mood') | |
| A reaction: I am struck by how the strong emotion of a vivid dream can remain as an inarticulate mood for the rest of the day. |
| 23968 | If reasons are seen impersonally (as just causal), then feelings are an irrelevant extra [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: If someone thought that reasons can be characterised impersonally, say in terms of causal role …it is then glaringly obvious that feelings cannot be left out, so they have to be added on. Hence I introduce the idea of 'feeling towards'. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] That is, he wants us to see feelings as intentional, active, motivating and causal, and not the marginal epiphenomena implied by an impersonal account. I think he is right. |
| 23969 | We have feelings of which we are hardly aware towards things in the world [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: One can be unreflectively emotionally engaged with the world, having feelings towards some object in the world, and yet at that moment not be reflectively aware of having those feelings. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that we do not just await some 'object' to trigger a background feeling, because we always have feelings. They are the continuous shifting wallpaper of our mental dwellings - which we sometimes notice. |
| 23984 | An emotion needs episodes of feeling, but not continuously [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: I see no need to insist that feelings …must be present at all times whilst you are having an emotion, …but without at least episodes of feeling, of which you can be more or less aware, an experience would not be an emotional one. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 'Unreflective') | |
| A reaction: [He cites William James] An odd situation, but it is the same as many chronic illnesses. Presumably because of the actual episodes the person will be aware of the emotion as a background state of potential episodes. |
| 23970 | Emotions are not avocado pears, with a rigid core and changeable surface [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: In an evolutionary and cultural account of emotions, I resist the 'avocado pear' conception of emotions, that our emotional behaviour comprises an inner core of 'hard-wired' reaction, and an out element which is open to cultural influences. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He is concerned with whether emotions can be educated, and defends the view that they can all be channelled or changed. In particular he rejects the idea that the stone consists of 'basic' emotions, which are untouchable. |
| 23985 | A basic emotion is the foundation of a hierarchy, such as anger for types of annoyance [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The idea of basic emotions is that our concepts of emotions are hierarchically organised. For example, if anger is a basic emotion, then less basic species of anger might be annoyance, fury, rage, indignation, and so forth. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: Most modern theorists seem to reject this idea. In a family of related emotions (each having a similar focal object), it is hard to see which one of them is basic, other than being the best known. Maybe the weakest one is basic? |
| 23986 | Early Chinese basic emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The Chinese Li Chi encyclopaedia (1st century BCE) says there are seven 'feelings of men': joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: [In J.Russell 1991] Love sounds like a stronger version of liking. If you are trying to train your feelings, it is helpful to have a basic list of them, even if the list is rather speculative. |
| 23991 | Cross-cultural studies of facial expressions suggests seven basic emotions [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It has been suggested that there are seven 'basic' emotions, based on cross-cultural studies of facial expressions. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: [Paul Ekman is cited] This makes the idea of universal basic emotions much more plausible. Goldie respects the research, but is cautious about inferences, mainly because digging deeper (such as interviews) makes it more complex. |
| 23967 | Some emotions are direct responses, and neither rational nor irrational [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It is perfectly intelligible and entirely human to experience an emotion when seeing a low-flying bat, where we would not want to say that the experience was either rational or irrational. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Goldie is attacking the common tendency of philosophers to over-intellectualise emotions. This example makes his point conclusively. |
| 23971 | Emotional thought is not rational, but it can be intelligible [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Emotions are not based on syllogistic reasoning ….but the thoughts involved in an emotion can show it to be intelligible, intelligibility being a thinner notion than rationality. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 1 Intro) | |
| A reaction: A nice distinction. The emotion is the best explanation. Compare 'intuition' and 'sensible' behaviour as also intelligible. An obvious problem is that if a person runs amok because they have a brain tumour, that is intelligible, but in no way rational. |
| 23975 | Learning an evaluative property like 'dangerous' is also learning an emotion [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The process of teaching a child how to identify things which are dangerous is typically one and the same process as teaching that child when fear is merited. ...'Dangerous' is an evaluative property, meriting a certain sort of response. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Education') | |
| A reaction: I like this, because it shows the unity between our inner life and our experience of the external world. Concepts and emotions are usually responses, rather than private initiatives. |
| 23983 | We call emotions 'passions' because they are not as controlled as we would like [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: In feeling towards things the imagination tends to 'run away with you', which is partly why the emotions are 'passions'; your thoughts and feelings are not always as much under your control as you would want them to be. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 'Towards') | |
| A reaction: This may have the chronology wrong. 'Passion' doesn't mean uncontrolled. I take it that 'passion' was an older word for 'emotion', and became attached to the older view of emotions as dangerous and corrupting. |
| 23999 | Emotional control is hard, but we are responsible for our emotions over long time periods [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: To some extent our emotions cannot be controlled. But to say that we are not responsible for our emotions is to ignore the possibility of educating them over time, so that, ideally, our responses come to be consonant with deliberated rational choices. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: So people go on anger management courses, or talk through crises with councellors. This idea describes most people correctly, but some are in the grips of passions which seem impossible to control. |
| 23994 | Emotions are not easily changed, as new knowledge makes little difference, and akrasia is possible [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Our emotional capabilities are not fully open to be developed. …First, they are to some extent cognitively impenetrable. Secondly, they can ground certain sorts of weakness of will, or akrasia. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: Education makes us more receptive to evidence. We could probably rate emotions on a scale indicating how easy they are to change. Jealousy seems tenacious. Most fears respond quickly to clear evidence. |
| 23998 | Emotional control is less concerned with emotional incidents, and more with emotional tendencies [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to speak as if emotional control is always a matter of controlling a token emotional response or action; …rather, it is like reshaping the channel along which future emotions can run. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: Presumably wise parents direct habitual feelings, where less wise parents respond to outbursts. The very best parents therefore presumably achieve complete brainwashing, and eliminate all initiative. Er, perhaps I've misunderstood? |
| 9460 | Extensionalist semantics forbids reference to nonexistent objects [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: In extensionalist semantics only existent objects can be referred to, ...but in everyday thought and discourse we regularly and apparently without undue confusion speak about nonexistent objects. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Meinong, whose views are presented by Russell as absurd, are undergoing a revival. The full-blown view will even treat 'round squares' as objects about which we can reason - and why not? Don't open a shop which sells them. |
| 9459 | Extensionalist semantics is circular, as we must know the extension before assessing 'Fa' [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: Extensional semantics is blatantly circular. For 'Fa' to be interpreted as true, we must know that object a belongs to the extension of the predicate F, so we must already know which objects belong to the extension. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Intro to 'Philosophy of Logic' [2002], §4) | |
| A reaction: I'm delighted to read this, because it was the first thought that occurred to me when I encountered the theory. Presumably this leads Quine to take predication as basic, because you can't break into the circle. Or, vote for intensionalism? |
| 7702 | The extreme views on propositions are Frege's Platonism and Quine's extreme nominalism [Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The extreme ontological alternatives with respect to the metaphysics of propositions are a Fregean Platonism (his "gedanken", 'thoughts'), and a radical nominalism or inscriptionalism, as in Quine, where they are just marks related to stimuli. | |
| From: Dale Jacquette (Ontology [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would want something between the two - that propositions are brain events of a highly abstract kind. I say that introspection reveals pre-linguistic thoughts, which are propositions. A proposition is an intentional state. |
| 23995 | Akrasia can be either overruling our deliberation, or failing to deliberate [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: I call it 'last ditch' akrasia when we deliberately decide to do something, and then don't do it, and 'impetuous' akrasia when we rush into doing something which, if we had deliberated, we would not have done. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that his impetuous version counts as akrasia, which seems to be vice of people who deliberate. [But he cites Aristotle 1150b19-]. |
| 24000 | Justifying reasons say you were right; excusing reasons say your act was explicable [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: A justifying reason will show that what you did, all things considered, was the right thing to do; an excusing reason will not justify, but will give some excuse to explain why you did what you did. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 Intro) | |
| A reaction: There are also internal reasons before the event, and explicit reasons afterwards. A mistaken justification might still be an excuse. |
| 24003 | Character traits are both possession of and lack of dispositions [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Most traits are dispositions of a relatively stable sort, but traits need not be dispositions. A trait can be a lack of disposition. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Traits') | |
| A reaction: Presumably only the lack relatively normal dispositions will count as traits. |
| 24002 | We over-estimate the role of character traits when explaining behaviour [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: We significantly overestimate the role of character traits in explaining and predicting people's action: the so-called Fundamental Attribution error. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Traits') | |
| A reaction: I think this point is incredibly important in daily life. 'When someone shows you who they are, believe them!' is a good thought. But we must distinguish the deeply revealing moment from the transient superficial one. |
| 24004 | Psychologists suggest we are muddled about traits, and maybe they should be abandoned [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Empirical psychologists have suggested that our practice of trait ascription is systematically prone to error. Some philosophers have concluded that the whole business of trait ascription, and of virtue ethics, should be abandoned. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Traits') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Ross and Nisbet, and Gilbert Harman as a sceptic] I suspect the problem is that character traits are not precise enough for scientific assessment. How else are we going to describe a person? What else can we say at funerals? |
| 23993 | Our capabilities did not all evolve during the hunter gathering period [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It is an unwarranted assumption that the only relevant evolutionary period in which our capabilities for emotions evolved is the period in which our ancestors were hunting and gathering. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: Goldie says that the evolution of emotions could well extend to much earlier times. Presumably this also applies to other traits, notably those not obviously needed for hunting. Gathering needs long term planning. |