29 ideas
| 1542 | Diogenes of Apollonia was the last natural scientist [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Simplicius] |
| Full Idea: Diogenes of Apollonia was more or less the last of those who made a study of natural science. | |
| From: report of Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], A05) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.25.1 | |
| A reaction: He quotes Theophrastus |
| 489 | Each thing must be in some way unique [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: No one thing among things subject to change can possibly be exactly like any other thing, without becoming the same thing. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B05), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 153.8 | |
| A reaction: This is said to be the first ever formulation of the principle of identity of indiscernible. |
| 5806 | Belief is the power of metarepresentation [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Belief is the power of metarepresentation. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I have always defined belief as 'commitment to truth', and this definition leaves out both parts. Where is the commitment? If hope is another metarepresentation, how does it differ from belief? I imagine things, not believing them to be true. |
| 5801 | A mouse hearing a piano played does not believe it, because it lacks concepts and understanding [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A mouse can see and hear a piano being played, but believing is something else; it requires the concept of a piano, and understanding. Mice who hear pianos being played do not believe pianos are being played. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: Are we to say that when a mouse hears a piano it has no beliefs at all? Might not a belief involve images, so that a mouse calls up appropriate images from previous experiences, which are in a grey area on the edge of belief? |
| 483 | Start a thesis with something undisputable [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: In starting any thesis, it seems to me, one should put forward as one's point of departure something incontrovertible. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B01), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.57 |
| 1544 | Perception must be an internal matter, because we can fail to perceive when we are preoccupied [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Theophrastus] |
| Full Idea: That it is the inner air that perceives, as being a fragment of the god, is shown by the fact that often when our minds are preoccupied with other matters we fail to see or hear. | |
| From: report of Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], A19) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 42 |
| 6445 | You have knowledge if you can rule out all the relevant alternatives to what you believe [Dretske, by DeRose] |
| Full Idea: The 'Relevant Alternatives' theory of knowledge said the main ingredient that must be added to true belief to make knowledge is that one be in a position to rule out all the relevant alternatives to what one believes. | |
| From: report of Fred Dretske (Epistemic Operators [1970]) by Keith DeRose - Intro: Responding to Skepticism §6 | |
| A reaction: Dretske and Nozick are associated with this strategy. There will obviously be a problem in defining 'relevant'. Otherwise it sounds quite close to Plato's suggestion that we need true belief with 'logos'. |
| 19544 | Closure says if you know P, and also know P implies Q, then you must know Q [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Closure is the epistemological principle that if S knows that P is true and knows that P implies Q, then, evidentially speaking, this is enough for S to know that Q is true. Nothing more is needed. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.25) | |
| A reaction: [Dretske was the first to raise this issue] It is 'closure' because it applies to every case of Q, which is every implication of P that is known. The issue is whether we really do know all such Qs. Dretske doubts it. See his zebra case. |
| 19545 | We needn't regret the implications of our regrets; regretting drinking too much implies the past is real [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: One doesn't have to regret everything one knows to be implied by what one regrets. Tom regrets drinking three martinis, but doesn't regret what he knows to be implied by this - that he drank 'something', or that the past is real. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.28) | |
| A reaction: A nice case of analogy! He's right about regret. Perceptual and inferential knowledge have different grounds. To deny inferential knowledge seems to be a denial that modus ponens can be a justification. But MP gives truth, not knowledge. |
| 19547 | Reasons for believing P may not transmit to its implication, Q [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Some reasons for believing P do not transmit to things, Q, known to be implied by P. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.29) | |
| A reaction: That seems true enough. I see someone limping, but infer that their leg is damaged. The only question is whether I should accept the inference. How can I accept that inference, but then back out of that knowledge? |
| 19546 | Knowing by visual perception is not the same as knowing by implication [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A way of knowing there are cookies in the jar - visual perception - is not a way of knowing what one knows to be implied by this - that visual appearances are not misleading. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.29) | |
| A reaction: Why is the 'way of knowing' relevant? Isn't the only question that of whether implication of a truth is in infallible route to a truth (modus ponens)? If you know THAT it is true, then you must believe it, and implication is top quality justification. No? |
| 19548 | The only way to preserve our homely truths is to abandon closure [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The only way to preserve knowledge of homely truths, the truths everyone takes themselves to know, is to abandon closure. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.32) | |
| A reaction: His point is that knowledge of homely truths seems to imply knowledge of the background facts needed to support them, which he takes to be an unreasonable requirement. I recommend pursuing contextualism, rather than abandoning closure. |
| 19549 | P may imply Q, but evidence for P doesn't imply evidence for Q, so closure fails [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The evidence that gives me knowledge of P (there are cookies in the jar) can exist without evidence for knowing Q (they are not fake), despite my knowing that P implies Q. So closure fails. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.33) | |
| A reaction: His more famous example is the zebra. How can P imply Q if there is no evidence for Q? Maybe 'there are cookies in the jar' does not entail they are not fake, once you disambiguate what is being said? |
| 19550 | We know past events by memory, but we don't know the past is real (an implication) by memory [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The reality of the past (a 'heavyweight implication') ...is something we know to be implied by things we remember, but it is not itself something we remember. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.35) | |
| A reaction: If I begin to doubt that the past is real, then I must necessarily begin to doubt my ordinary memories. This seems to be the modus tollens of knowledge closure. Doesn't that imply that the modus ponens was valid, and closure is correct? |
| 5802 | Representations are in the head, but their content is not, as stories don't exist in their books [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Representations are in the head, but their content is not; in this sense, the mind isn't in the head any more than stories (i.e. story contents) are in books. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.6) | |
| A reaction: This is the final consequence of Putnam's idea that meanings ain't in the head. Intentionality is an extraordinary bridge between the brain and the external world. The ontology of stories, and musical compositions, is one philosophy's deepest problems. |
| 5809 | Some activities are performed better without consciousness of them [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Some tasks (playing the piano, speaking foreign languages, playing fast sports) are best performed when the agent is largely unconscious of the details. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Ch.4 n16) | |
| A reaction: A significant point, but it supports the evolutionary view, which is that what matters is success, and consciousness will switch on or off, whichever promotes the activity best. |
| 5808 | Qualia are just the properties objects are represented as having [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The Representational Thesis of mind identifies the qualities of experience - qualia - with the properties objects are represented as having. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §3.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to challenge the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, of which I am very fond. Is 'looks beautiful' a property of an object? Is the feeling of anger a property of an object? Qualia are properties of brains? |
| 5805 | Introspection does not involve looking inwards [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The 'problem' of introspection evaporates once one understands that it is not a process in which one looks inward. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: I take it that when we introspect we look at the contents of thoughts, which are representations of the external world, on the whole. But surely only the connections of those contents with memories can be seen inwardly? |
| 5803 | In a representational theory of mind, introspection is displaced perception [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: On a representational theory of the mind, introspection becomes an instance of displaced perception - knowledge of internal (mental) facts via an awareness of external (physical) objects. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds close to a behaviourist (e.g. Ryle) account of introspection, via observing one's own behaviour. The word 'displaced' is an easy one, concealing a multitude of questions. |
| 5807 | Introspection is the same as the experience one is introspecting [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Introspection has no phenomenology or, if it does, it always has the same phenomenology as the experience one is introspecting. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2.4) | |
| A reaction: There is a difference between looking at a tree, and being aware of yourself looking at a tree. You can be faintly depressed, and then become aware that you are faintly depressed. He is nearly right. |
| 5804 | A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably brain events bring the world into the mind, so the world must be mentioned in explaining the mind. Maybe 'externalism' sounds grand, but is stating the boringly obvious. Explanations of mind need no mention of external particulars. |
| 24042 | The older Diogenes said the soul is air, made of the smallest particles [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: Diogenes [of Apollonia] took the soul to be air, thnking that of all things air is composed of the smallest particles and is a starting point. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], DK 64), quoted by Aristotle - De Anima 405a21 | |
| A reaction: This suggests that Diogenes of Apollonia was an atomist, if the soul is made of particles. See also Met 984a5, which says Anaxagoras had the same view. |
| 5800 | All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that all mental facts are representational facts, and that all representational facts are facts about informational functions. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Prol) | |
| A reaction: The first half of the thesis seems a bit difficult to disagree with, but that a fact is 'represented' may not be the essence of that fact. The biggest mystery is the content, not its representation. And everything is 'information' about everything else. |
| 20751 | As a young girl assumes her status as feminine, she acts in a more fragile immobile way [Young,IM] |
| Full Idea: The young girl acquires many subject habits of feminine body comportment - walking, tilting her head, standing and sitting like a girl, and so on ….The more a girl assumes her status as feminine, the more she takes herself to be fragile and immobile. | |
| From: Iris Marion Young (On Female Body Experience [2005], p.43), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 3 'Aspects' | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as true of young women, but it largely wears off as they get older, at least among modern women. A whole book could be written about women and smiling. |
| 5995 | Diogenes of Apollonia offered the first teleological account of cosmology [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Robinson,TM] |
| Full Idea: Credit for the first clear assertion of teleological explanation in cosmology goes to Diogenes of Apollonia, for whom air is the divine and intelligent ground of the real and disposes things in the best possible way. | |
| From: report of Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE]) by T.M. Robinson - Classical Cosmology (frags) | |
| A reaction: The first teleological explanation seems to be based on a conscious mind. There also emerges the possibility of some sort of non-conscious teleology, closer to the laws of physics than to God. |
| 488 | Air is divine, because it is in and around everything, and arranges everything [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: Air in itself seems to me to be God and to reach everywhere and to arrange everything and to be in everything. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B05), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 152.22- | |
| A reaction: So water and fire and air have been offered as the ultimate explanans, though no one seems to offer earth, which is too grubby and miserable (and was denied a Form by Plato). 'Air is God' could ground a nice modern religious sect. |
| 484 | Everything is ultimately a variation of one underlying thing [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that all existing things are created by the alteration of the same thing, and are the same thing. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 151.31- |
| 486 | Plants and animals can only come into existence if something fixes their species [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: No plant could grow out of the earth, and no animal or any other thing could come into being, unless it were so compounded as to be the same. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 151.31- |
| 485 | Things must retain their essential nature during change, or mixing would be impossible [Diogenes of Apollonia] |
| Full Idea: If any existing thing were different in its own essential nature, and were not the same thing which was transformed in many ways and changed, in no way could things mix with one another. | |
| From: Diogenes (Apoll) (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 151.31- |