Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, George Dickie and Scott Sturgeon

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10 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
Mindless bodies are zombies, bodiless minds are ghosts [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: When bodies are conceived without mind, Zombies are the topic; when mind is conceived without bodies, Ghosts are the topic.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: Personally I am not too impressed by either possibility. I doubt whether either of them are even logically possible. Can you have a magnet without its magnetism? Can you have magnetism with no magnet?
Types are properties, and tokens are events. Are they split between mental and physical, or not? [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: The question is whether mental and physical types (which are properties) are distinct, and whether mental and physical tokens (which are events) are distinct.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: Helpful. While the first one gives us the rather dodgy notion of 'property dualism', the second one seems to imply Cartesian dualism, if the events really are distinct. It seems to me that thought is an aspect of brain events, not a distinct event.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality
Intentionality isn't reducible, because of its experiential aspect [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: The link between Aboutness and consciousness, plus the latter's theoretical recalcitrance, have prevented reduction of the former.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: I remain unconvinced that Aboutness (intentionality) has to be wholly (or even partly conscious). We are more interested in our conscious mental states, because those are the ones we can report to other people, and discuss.
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 1. Reductionism critique
Rule-following can't be reduced to the physical [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: If you can't squeeze an 'ought' from an 'is', then the feature of normativity will prevent the reduction of Aboutness.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: A dubious argument. Hume's point is that no rational inference will get you from is to ought, but you can get there on a whim. I don't see normativity as being so intrinsically magical that it is irreducible.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: The dominant empirical argument for physicalism is the Overdetermination Argument: physics is closed and complete, mind is causally efficacious, the world isn't choc-full of overdetermination, so the mind is physical as well.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: I find this argument utterly convincing. The idea that there is only one thing which is outside the interconnected causal nexus which seems to constitute the rest of reality, and that is a piece of meat inside our heads, strikes me as totally ridiculous.
18. Thought / C. Content / 10. Causal Semantics
Do facts cause thoughts, or embody them, or what? [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: Does a thought relate to its truth conditions like a tree to its age, a bee dance to its target, or smoke to its cause?
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: Nice question. Is truth the purpose of thoughts, or the cause of thoughts, or the constitution(?) of thoughts? I vote for the bee….but we mustn't confuse truth with truth-conditions.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
The aesthetic attitude is nothing more than paying close attention [Dickie, by Giovannelli]
     Full Idea: Once analysed, Dickie claimed, the so-called aesthetic attitude is not special at all, but is rather just a matter of close attention and focus on the subject.
     From: report of George Dickie (The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude [1964]) by Alessandro Giovannelli - Some contemporary developments (aesthetics) 1
     A reaction: Sounds wrong. If a paint specialist gives close attention to a painting, they do not necessarily have an aesthetic view of it. You need to know the aim of the activity, just as when you watch a game.
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 6. Art as Institution
A work of art is an artifact created for the artworld [Dickie]
     Full Idea: A work of art is an artifact of a kind created to be presented to an artworld public.
     From: George Dickie (The New Institutional Theory of Art [1983], p.53)
     A reaction: This is the culminating definition in his paper, deriving originally from Danto, and an improvement of his earlier more complex definition. Since this definition amounts to 'this is art if I say it is art', it doesn't seem to reveal much.
The institutional theory says only a competent expert can decree something to be an art work [Dickie, by Gardner]
     Full Idea: Dickie's institutional theory of art says that something is a work of art if and only if it has had that status conferred on it by a competent member of the artworld.
     From: report of George Dickie (Introduction to Aesthetics [1997], Ch.8) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 3.1
     A reaction: The idea that a single 'competent' person can do this sounds daft, and probably circular. A consensus in the artworld sounds more plausible, but this still leaves the revolutionary genius, who - in retrospect - produced unrecognised 'art'.
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley]
     Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us.
     From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus
     A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts?