3 ideas
| 16629 | By comparing qualities and features, reason can gradually infer the nature of substance [Grosseteste] |
| Full Idea: Awakened reason distinguishes color from size and shape from body and then shape and size from the substance of body, and so by drawing distinctions and abstracting, it arrives at a grasp of the substance of body, which supports size, shape and color. | |
| From: Robert Grosseteste (Commentary on 'Posterior Analytics' [1226], I.14), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.4 | |
| A reaction: This optimistic view influenced Aquinas, and is called 'incrementalism' by Pasnau. It is the spirit of scientific essentialism, and a nice instance of inference to the best explanation (though 'substance' in itself explains virtually nothing). |
| 3214 | The models we use in reasoning may be more like perceptions than like language [Johnson-Laird] |
| Full Idea: The models that people use to reason are more likely to resemble perception or conception of the events (from a God's-eye view) than a string of symbols directly corresponding to the linguistic form of the premises and then applying rules of inference. | |
| From: P. Johnson-Laird (Mental Models [1983], p.53), quoted by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 10.1.2 | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that imagination is the single most important faculty in any conscious mind, and that even small animals have an inkling of the God's-eye view. Decisions need 'what-if' scenarios. |
| 6005 | 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? |