383 ideas
| 7278 | Words of wisdom are precise and clear [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Words of wisdom are precise and clear. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I can only approve of this. The issue of clarity is much discussed amongs philosophers, especially in the analytic v continental debate. Note, therefore, the additional requirement to be 'precise'. Should we be less clear in order to be precise? |
| 12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Who cares what gets called 'philosophy'? It's my impression that most of what happened in philosophy before 1950 wouldn't qualify according to the present usage. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.5) | |
| A reaction: A rather breath-taking remark. Fodor is, of course, a devotee of David Hume, and of Descartes, but he never seems to refer to Greeks at all. Personally I presume that if you aren't doing what Plato and Aristotle were interested in, it ain't philosophy. |
| 7281 | Don't even start, let's just stay put [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Don't even start, let's just stay put. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: What a remarkable proposal! He seems frightened to make an omelette, because he will have to break an egg, or he might burn himself. I can't relate to this idea, but it's existence must be noted, like other scepticisms. |
| 9414 | Metaphysics is the mapping of possibilities [Lowe, by Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics can be judged as the mapping of possibilities. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 2.2 |
| 16414 | Science needs metaphysics to weed out its presuppositions [Lowe, by Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Lowe argues that the sciences need metaphysics to discharge the assumptions that they simply made at the outset. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics 1.2 | |
| A reaction: Hofweber doesn't buy this, and neither do I. I don't think science 'needs' metaphysics (or barely needs it), but I do think metaphysics needs a fair degree of science. It is high-level abstraction based on the facts. |
| 13917 | Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The central task of metaphysics is to chart the possibilities of existence by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency in which beings of different categories stand to one another. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I am beginning to think that he is right about the second one, and that dependency and grounding relations are the name of the game. I don't have Lowe's confidence that philosophers can parcel up reality in neat and true ways. |
| 4194 | Metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental structure of reality as a whole [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is concerned with the fundamental structure of reality as a whole. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.2) | |
| A reaction: I think it is vital to hang on to this big definition, focusing on ontology, and not retreat (like Kant) to the epistemological question of how humans happen to see reality, even if we are stuck with being humans. |
| 8282 | Only metaphysics can decide whether identity survives through change [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Only metaphysics can vindicate a judgement that a caterpillar survives to become a butterfly, but a pig does not survive to become pork, or that water survives as ice, but that paper does not survive as ash. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: The works of Lowe, and other modern heroes, have shown that these real questions can be pursued intensively into areas where no scientist, or even theologian, would dare to tread. |
| 16127 | Metaphysics tells us what there could be, rather than what there is [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I do not claim that metaphysics on its own can, in general, tell us what there is. Rather - to a first approximation - I hold that metaphysics by itself only tells us what there could be. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: If there is going to be a modern defence of metaphysics, in an age dominated by empirical science, this sounds pretty good to me. Presumably it also says what there couldn't be. The challenge is to offer authority for any claims made. |
| 4214 | Maybe such concepts as causation, identity and existence are primitive and irreducible [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It may well be that after all our attempts at analysis, we have to accept the notions of causality, identity and existence as being primitive and irreducible. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.191) | |
| A reaction: They may be irreducible, but it seems possible that the relationships between them might be revealed (as between Platonic Forms). To exist is to have identity and causal powers? |
| 13919 | Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The central task of philosophy is the cultivation of insights into natures or essences, and not the 'analysis of concepts', with which it is apt to be confused. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a false dichotomy. I like the idea of trying to understand the true natures of things, but how are we going to do it in our armchairs? |
| 12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Attempts to define a term frequently elicit necessary but not sufficient conditions for membership of its extension. This is called the 'X problem', as in 'kill' means 'cause to die' plus X. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.2.1 n3) | |
| A reaction: Fodor is one of the great sceptics about definition. I just don't see why we have to have totally successful definitions before we can accept the process as a worthwhile endeavour. |
| 2474 | It seems likely that analysis of concepts is impossible, but justification can survive without it [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Lots of philosophers fear that if concepts don't have analyses, justification breaks down. My own guess is that concepts don't have analyses and that justification will survive all the same. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3 n2) |
| 2481 | Despite all the efforts of philosophers, nothing can ever be reduced to anything [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The general truth is that nothing ever reduces to anything, however hard philosophers may try. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) |
| 4222 | If all that exists is what is being measured, what about the people and instruments doing the measuring? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we think, in a positivistic spirit, that only measurements and observations exist, this is strikingly naïve. The scientists and their instruments can't be composed merely of measurements. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.234) | |
| A reaction: A strong rebuff to crude positivism and 'operationalism'. Such mistakes are the usual confusion of epistemology and ontology. |
| 2505 | Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The most important thing that has happened in cognitive science was Turing's invention of the notion of mechanical rationality (because some inferences are rational in virtue of the syntax of their sentences). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) |
| 2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: There seems to be an emerging naturalist consensus that is Realist in ontology and epistemology, externalist in semantics, and computationalist in cognitive psychology, which nicely allows us to retain our understanding of ourselves as rational creatures. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
| 4217 | It is more extravagant, in general, to revise one's logic than to augment one's ontology [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is more extravagant, in general, to revise one's logic than to augment one's ontology. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.219) | |
| A reaction: Meaning there are stronger principles of thought which can trump Ockham's Razor. A few more entities won't hurt. Sound right. |
| 7282 | Disagreement means you do not understand at all [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: The sage encompasses everything, while ordinary people just argue about things. Disagreement means you do not understand at all. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is why democracy and western analytical philosophy come as a package. We can't assume that our government is always right, and we can't assume that a 'sage' has managed to encompass everything. Criticism is essential! |
| 7284 | If you beat me in argument, does that mean you are right? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: If you get the better of me in a disagreement, rather than me getting the better of you, does this mean that you are automatically right and I am automatically wrong? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Very nice. I don't, though, think that this invalidates the process of argument. What matters about such an exchange is the resulting reflection by the two parties. Only a fool thinks that he is right because he won, or wrong because he lost. |
| 16539 | A definition of a circle will show what it is, and show its generating principle [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If the definition of a circle is based on 'locus of a point', this tells us what a circle is, and it does so by revealing its generating principle, what it takes for a circle to come into being. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: Lowe says that real definitions, as essences, do not always have to spell out a 'generating principle', but they do in this case. Another approach would be to try to map dependence relations between truths about circles, and see what is basic. |
| 16540 | Defining an ellipse by conic sections reveals necessities, but not the essence of an ellipse [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Defining an ellipse in terms of the oblique intersection of a cone and a plane (rather than in terms of the sum of the distance between the foci) gives us a necessary property, but not the essence, because the terms are extrinsic to its nature. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: [compressed wording] Helpful and illuminating. If you say some figure is what results when one thing intersects another, that doesn't tell you what the result actually is. Geometrical essences may be a bit vague, but they are quite meaningful. |
| 16548 | An essence is what an entity is, revealed by a real definition; this is not an entity in its own right [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: An entity's essence is just what that entity is, revealed by its real definition. This isn't a distinct entity, but either the entity itself, or (my view) no entity at all. ..We should not reify essence, as that leads to an infinite regress of essences. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: The regress problem is a real one, if we wish to treat an essence as some proper and distinct part of an entity. If it is a mechanism, for example, the presumably a mechanism has an essence. No, it doesn't! Levels of explanation! |
| 16549 | Simple things like 'red' can be given real ostensive definitions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Is it true that we cannot say, non-circularly, what red is? We cannot find a complex synonym for it, but I think we can provide red with an ostensive real definition. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite sure how 'real' this definition would be, if it depends on observers (some of whom may be colourblind). In what sense is this act of ostensions a 'definition'? You must distinguish the colour from the texture or shape. |
| 8262 | How can a theory of meaning show the ontological commitments of two paraphrases of one idea? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Nothing purely within the theory of meaning is capable of telling us which of two sentences which are paraphrases of one another more accurately reflects the ontological commitments of those who utter them. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is an attack on the semantic approach to ontology, associated with Quine. Cf. Idea 7923. I have always had an aversion to that approach, and received opinion is beginning to agree. "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." |
| 12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: There are practically no defensible examples of definitions; for all the examples we've got, practically all the words (/concepts) are undefinable. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't think a definition has to be defined all the way down. Aristotle is perfectly happy if you can get a concept you don't understand down to concepts you do. Understanding is the test, not further definitions. |
| 2470 | Transcendental arguments move from knowing Q to knowing P because it depends on Q [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Transcendental arguments ran: "If it weren't that P, we couldn't know (now 'say' or 'think' or 'judge') that Q; and we do know (now…) that Q; therefore P". Old and new arguments tend to be equally unconvincing, because of their empiricist preconceptions. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3) |
| 2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: A psychology that can't make sense of such facts as that mental processes are typically truth-preserving is ipso facto dead in the water. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.3) |
| 18351 | Propositions are made true, in virtue of something which explains its truth [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If a proposition is 'made' true, it has to be true 'in virtue of' something, meaning a relationship of metaphysical explanation. Thus a true proposition must have truth conferred on it in some way that explains how it gets to be true. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.202) | |
| A reaction: It is good to ask what we mean by 'makes'. I like essentialist explanations, but this may be misplaced. Observing that y makes x true seems to be rather less than actually explaining how it does it. What would such explanations look like? |
| 8315 | Maybe facts are just true propositions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If facts are 'proposition-like' or 'thinkable' (we speak of 'knowing' or 'understanding' facts) might they not simply be true propositions? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: They certainly can't be if we are going to use facts as what makes propositions true. The proposal would be empty without out some other account of truth (probably a dubious one). Facts are truth-makers? |
| 8319 | One-to-one correspondence would need countable, individuable items [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Where there is one-to-one correspondence there must certainly be countable, and therefore individuable items of some kind. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.6) | |
| A reaction: Lowe is criticising precise notions of 'a fact'. We can respond by relaxing the notion of 'one-to-one', if critics are going to be fussy about exactly what the items are. "There is a huge wave coming" doesn't need a precise notion of a wave to be true. |
| 8309 | A set is a 'number of things', not a 'collection', because nothing actually collects the members [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A set is 'a number of things', not a 'collection'. Nothing literally 'collects' the members of a set, such as the set of planets of the sun, unless it be a Fregean 'concept' under which they fall. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm tempted to say that the sun has collected a set of planets (they're the ones that rotate around it). Why can't we have natural sets, which have been collected by nature? A question of the intension, as well as the extension.... |
| 8322 | I don't believe in the empty set, because (lacking members) it lacks identity-conditions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is not clear to me that the empty set has well-defined identity-conditions. A set has these only to the extent that its members do - but the empty set has none. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.3 n8) | |
| A reaction: The empty set is widely used by those who base their metaphysics of maths on sets. It defines zero, and hence is the starting poing for Peano's Postulates (Idea 5897). It might not have identity in itself, but you know where you have arrived after 2 - 2. |
| 2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §3) |
| 12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I'm inclined to think that 'and' is defined by its truth-table (and not, for example, by its 'inferential-role'). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right, on my general principle that something can only have a function if it has an intrinsic nature. The truth-table just formalises normal understanding of 'and', according to what it makes true. |
| 3005 | 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the concept 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from the concept 'Oedipus's mother', that's all right because the two concepts are connected with different properties. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 84) |
| 12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Names in thought (in contrast to, say, descriptions in thought) afford a primitive way of bringing John before the mind. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3 App) | |
| A reaction: I think the 'file' account of concepts which Fodor has now latched onto gives a wonderful account of names. They are simple if you haven't opened the file yet (like 'Louis', in Evans's example). |
| 12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Paderewski (as pianist and as politician) has two names in Mentalese. If you think there are two Paderewskis, it's important that what you get when you retrieve the pianist file differs from the politician file. You can then merge the two files. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3 App) | |
| A reaction: The same will apply to 'Hespherus' and 'Phosphorus'. We can re-separate the 'morning star' and 'evening star' files if we wish to discuss ancient Egyptian attitudes to such things. I love this idea of Fodor's. Explanations flow from it. |
| 8312 | It is better if the existential quantifier refers to 'something', rather than a 'thing' which needs individuation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we take the existential quantifier to mean 'there is at least one thing that' then its value must qualify as one thing, individuable in principle. ...So I propose to read it as 'there is something that', which implies nothing about individuability. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11) | |
| A reaction: All sorts of doubts about the existential quantifier seem to be creeping in nowadays (e.g. Ideas 6067, 6069, 8250). Personally I am drawn to the sound of 'free logic', Idea 8250, which drops existential claims. This would reduce metaphysical confusion. |
| 6653 | Syntactical methods of proof need only structure, where semantic methods (truth-tables) need truth [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Syntactical methods of proof (e.g.'natural deduction') have regard only to the formal structure of premises and conclusions, whereas semantic methods (e.g. truth-tables) consider their possible interpretations as expressing true or false propositions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This is highly significant, because the first method of reasoning could be mechanical, whereas the second requires truth, and hence meaning, and hence (presumably) consciousness. Is full rationality possible with 'natural deduction'? |
| 12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The truth of P-and-Q is (roughly) a function of the truth of P and the truth of Q; but the consistency of P&Q isn't a function of the consistency of P and the consistency of Q. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.4.5 n33) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice deep issue. Fodor is interested in artificial intelligence at this point, but I am interested in the notion of coherence, as found in good justifications. Even consistency isn't elementary logic, never mind coherence. |
| 4229 | An infinite series of tasks can't be completed because it has no last member [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It appears to be impossible to complete an infinite series of tasks, since such a series has, by definition, no last member. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.290) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints the problem. So are there infinite tasks in a paradox of subdivision like the Achilles? |
| 4240 | It might be argued that mathematics does not, or should not, aim at truth [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It might be argued that mathematics does not, or should not, aim at truth. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.375) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Sounds wrong to me. At least maths seems to need the idea of the 'correct' answer. If, however, maths is a huge pattern, there is no correctness, just the pattern. We can be wrong, but maths can't be wrong. Ah, I see…! |
| 8297 | Numbers are universals, being sets whose instances are sets of appropriate cardinality [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: My view is that numbers are universals, beings kinds of sets (that is, kinds whose particular instances are individual sets of appropriate cardinality). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10) | |
| A reaction: [That is, 12 is the set of all sets which have 12 members] This would mean, I take it, that if the number of objects in existence was reduced to 11, 12 would cease to exist, which sounds wrong. Or are we allowed imagined instances? |
| 8266 | Simple counting is more basic than spotting that one-to-one correlation makes sets equinumerous [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: That one-to-one correlated sets of objects are equinumerous is a more sophisticated achievement than the simple ability to count sets of objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.9) | |
| A reaction: This is an objection to Frege's way of defining numbers, in terms of equinumerous sets. I take pattern-recognition to be the foundation of number, and so spotting a pattern would have to precede spotting that two patterns were identical. |
| 8302 | Fs and Gs are identical in number if they one-to-one correlate with one another [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: What is now known as Hume's Principle says the number of Fs is identical with the number of Gs if and only if the Fs and the Gs are one-to-one correlated with one another. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems popular as a tool in attempts to get the concept of number off the ground. Although correlations don't seem to require numbers ('find yourself a partner'), at some point you have to count the correlations. Sets come first, to identify the Fs. |
| 8298 | Sets are instances of numbers (rather than 'collections'); numbers explain sets, not vice versa [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I favour an account of sets which sees them as being instances of numbers, thereby avoiding the unhelpful metaphor which speaks of a set as being a 'collection' of things. This reverses the normal view, which explains numbers in terms of sets. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 8297. Either a set is basic, or a number is. We might graft onto Lowe's view an account of numbers in terms of patterns, which would give an empirical basis to the picture, and give us numbers which could be used to explain sets. |
| 8311 | If 2 is a particular, then adding particulars to themselves does nothing, and 2+2=2 [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If 2 is a particular, 'adding' it to itself can, it would seem, only leave us with 2, not another number. (If 'Socrates + Socrates' denotes anything, it most plausibly just denotes Socrates). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.7) | |
| A reaction: This suggest Kant's claim that arithmetical sums are synthetic (Idea 5558). It is a nice question why, when you put two 2s together, they come up with something new. Addition is movement. Among patterns, or along abstract sequences. |
| 4241 | If there are infinite numbers and finite concrete objects, this implies that numbers are abstract objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The Peano postulates imply an infinity of numbers, but there are probably not infinitely many concrete objects in existence, so natural numbers must be abstract objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.375) | |
| A reaction: Presumably they are abstract objects even if they aren't universals. 'Abstract' is an essential term in our ontological vocabulary to cover such cases. Perhaps possible concrete objects are infinite. |
| 8310 | Does the existence of numbers matter, in the way space, time and persons do? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Does it really matter whether the numbers actually exist - in anything like the way in which it matters that space and time or persons actually exist? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: Nice question! It might matter a lot. I take the question of numbers to be a key test case, popular with philosophers because they are the simplest and commonest candidates for abstract existence. The ontological status of values is the real issue. |
| 8321 | All possible worlds contain abstracta (e.g. numbers), which means they contain concrete objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One could argue that some abstract objects exist in all possible worlds (e.g. natural numbers) and that abstract objects always depend for their existence upon concrete objects, and conclude that some concrete objects exist in all possible worlds. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: We're all in the dark on this one, but I quite like this argument. I can't conceive of a reality that lacks natural numbers, and the truths that accompany them, and I personally think that numbers arise from the patterns of physical reality. |
| 12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: People say 'exist' is ambiguous, because of the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers is strikingly like the difference between chairs and numbers. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: To say 'numbers are objects which exist' is, to me, either a funny use of 'exist' or a funny use of 'object'. I think I will now vote for the latter. Just as 'real number' was a funny use of 'number', but we seem to have got used to it. |
| 4239 | Nominalists deny abstract objects, because we can have no reason to believe in their existence [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Nominalists tend to deny the existence of abstract objects since, given their purported nature (non-causal), we can have no reason to believe in their existence. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.372) | |
| A reaction: A good point. Aristotle worried about the causal inadequacy of the Forms. My mind can conceive of a 'thing' with no causal powers, just sitting there. |
| 8300 | Perhaps possession of causal power is the hallmark of existence (and a reason to deny the void) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: For some metaphysicians, possession of causal power is the very hallmark of real existence (and is one reason, for instance, why some have denied the existence of the void or absolute space). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: You could try saying that space has the power of making movement possible. The 'hallmark' of something doesn't define what it is. Existence without causal power seems logically possible and imaginable, but unlikely. Epiphenomena have this problem. |
| 4202 | Change can be of composition (the component parts), or quality (properties), or substance [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There seem to be three kinds of change: compositional change (of component parts), qualitative change (of properties), or substantial change (when underlying essence begins or ceases). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.59) | |
| A reaction: Notice this gives 'components' a more prominent ontological status than usual. Is this computer a component of my study? |
| 15541 | Maybe particles are unchanging, and intrinsic change in things is their rearrangement [Lowe, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lowe's solution the 'temporary intrinsics' problem is that particles have no temporary intrinsic properties; they may be safely supposed to endure, and large things consist of those enduring particles, undergoing rearrangement but no intrinsic change. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (Lewis on Perdurance versus Endurance [1987]) by David Lewis - Rearrangement of Particles II | |
| A reaction: A mere rearrangement of particles doesn't sound the same as a change in properties, which must involve causal powers in some way. |
| 8281 | Heraclitus says change is new creation, and Spinoza that it is just phases of the one substance [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The extreme views on change are the Heraclitan view - that every change brings into existence an entirely new entity, and destroys what existed before, and the Spinozan view - that all changes are phase changes within a single substance. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: The views in between are that bundles of properties shift their contents, or that many substances undergo changes in their properties. The unification of physics might be aiming to vindicate Spinoza. Temporal parts (Lewis) are close to Heraclitus. |
| 4201 | Four theories of qualitative change are 'a is F now', or 'a is F-at-t', or 'a-at-t is F', or 'a is-at-t F' [Lowe, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Qualitative change is seen as either (i) 'Presentism' - 'a is F now', or (ii) 'relational properties' - 'a is F-at-t', or (iii) 'temporal parts' - 'a-at-t is F', or (iv) 'adverbial' - 'a is-a-t F'. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.44) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: The traditional view would let a stay the same over time, and change its property (ii). Lewis favours (iii). My suspicion is that thinking collapses if you abandon the tradtional view. |
| 8270 | Events are changes or non-changes in properties and relations of persisting objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: My own broadly Aristotelian view is that events are changes (and unchanges) in the properties and relations of persisting objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This needs an account of what it is that persists, and the philosophers' (but not physicists') concept of 'substance' fills this role. It is rather hard to give identity-conditions for an event if it is an 'unchange'. How would you count such events? |
| 4219 | Numerically distinct events of the same kind (like two battles) can coincide in space and time [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Numerically distinct events of the same kind (like two battles) can plausible coincide in space and time. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.225) | |
| A reaction: This is certainly discouraging for anyone who wanted to make events ontologically basic. Physicalist need to be able to individuate events in a reductive way. |
| 4221 | Maybe modern physics requires an event-ontology, rather than a thing-ontology [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is sometimes said that modern physics requires us to espouse an event-ontology, rather than a thing-ontology. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.233) | |
| A reaction: It has to be a mistake to build our philosophical ontology on current physics, because even the physicists say they don't understand the latter very well. |
| 8308 | Events are ontologically indispensable for singular causal explanations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: We must include events in our ontology because they figure indispensably in singular causal explanations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.5) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Spirits figure indispensably in supernatural explanations. It would be quite a task to prove that events really are indispensable to causal explanations. Why would nomological or counterfactual causal explanations not have the same need? |
| 4220 | Maybe an event is the exemplification of a property at a time [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Maybe an event is the exemplification of a property at a time. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.229) | |
| A reaction: What exactly would 'exemplify' mean here? This probably turns out to be circular when you attempt to explain what a property is. |
| 4225 | Events are changes in the properties of or relations between things [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: My own preference is for a conception of events which reduces them to changes in the properties of or relations between things. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.245) | |
| A reaction: Changes of property and changes of relations are two very different things. Is a 'near miss' an event? If so, is any movement an event? If movement is relative, then so are events. |
| 8314 | Are facts wholly abstract, or can they contain some concrete constituents? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers who invoke facts are divided over whether facts are wholly abstract entities or are complexes capable of containing concrete objects as constituents. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: If externalism about concepts was true (see Thought|Content|Broad Content), this would support the second (more concrete) view of facts. The correspondence theory of truth would love to plug belief into the concrete world. Me too. |
| 8316 | Facts cannot be wholly abstract if they enter into causal relations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There is a difficulty for any view of facts which sees them as being wholly abstract entities, and yet also being causal relata; for it seems that only concrete entities, existing in time and space, can enter into causal relations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.3) | |
| A reaction: There seems a lot of ambiguity in the air here, between epistemology and ontology (surprise!). I take causation to be a physical activity in the concrete world. Our understanding of it is expressed with abstractions. 'Fact' seems to have two meanings. |
| 8318 | The problem with the structured complex view of facts is what binds the constituents [Lowe] |
|
Full Idea:
The most notorious problem besetting the view that facts are structured complexes of constituents is the question of what it is that binds the supposed constituents into the fact. The ordered triple |
|
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.5) | |
| A reaction: Lowe denies that facts are complex entities on this basis. You only have the problem if Mars and its redness are two 'things'. If redness is intrinsically a dependent item, we may escape. I wish they wouldn't use colours as examples. See Idea 5456. |
| 8323 | It is whimsical to try to count facts - how many facts did I learn before breakfast? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although 'fact' is grammatically a count noun, it strikes us as being at best whimsical to talk about enumerating facts - to talk, for instance, about how many facts I learned today before breakfast. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12.4) | |
| A reaction: I always liked the question 'how many facts are there in this room?' One might make a serious attempt to decide how many facts I learned before breakfast, and reach a reasonable approximation, especially if one didn't open the newspaper. |
| 8313 | Facts are needed for truth-making and causation, but they seem to lack identity criteria [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Facts seem to be indispensable as truth-makers and perhaps as causal relata, ..but if we must only include in our ontology things for which we can state a criterion of identity (Quine), ..we seem to be faced with a dilemma. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11) | |
| A reaction: Lowe proposes to relax the identification requirement (see Idea 8312). This seems a good strategy. An awful lot of strange philosophy arises from insisting on strict conditions for our understanding, and then finding everywhere failure to achieve it. |
| 8258 | Two of the main rivals for the foundations of ontology are substances, and facts or states-of-affairs [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One of the chief rivals to my own substance-based ontology is the view that holds facts or states of affairs to be the building-blocks of the world. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I think I side with Lowe, even though I am uneasy about the gap between the philosopher's 'substance' and the basic entities of physics. Facts are hard to individuate, and seem to be composed of more basic elements. |
| 8301 | Some abstractions exist despite lacking causal powers, because explanation needs them [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some abstract objects, notably certain universals, need to be invoked for explanatory purposes, even if it cannot be said that they themselves possess causal powers or enter into causal relations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: I am unconvinced that an entity with no causal powers could be any kind of explanation, given that, by definition, it can't do anything. You would have to think that the world of pure reason functioned without the aid of causal powers. |
| 8283 | Ontological categories are not natural kinds: the latter can only be distinguished using the former [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Ontological categories should not be confused with natural kinds: for natural kinds can only be differentiated in a principled way relative to an accepted framework of ontological categories. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: I presume that the natural kinds are likely to be contingent facts about the actual world (though they may entail necessary laws), whereas I like to think, unfashionably, that categories aim at deconstructing the mind of God (roughly). |
| 8284 | The top division of categories is either abstract/concrete, or universal/particular, or necessary/contingent [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some metaphysicians take the highest division to be between abstract and concrete entities, others take it to be between universals and particulars (my own preference, though it is not crucial), and others between necessary and contingent entities. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: The first division may be blurred, and I am doubtful about universals, so I favour the third. Intuition tells me that there is nothing more basic than the distinction between what is true in all worlds and what is only true in some. The former is bedrock. |
| 13122 | Lowe divides things into universals and particulars, then kinds and properties, and abstract/concrete [Lowe, by Westerhoff] |
| Full Idea: Lowe's Ontological Categories: ENTITIES - {Universals - [Kinds - (Non-natural)(Natural)] [Properties, Relations]} {Particulars - [Abstracta - (Sets)(others)] [Concreta - (Objects)(Non-Objects)]} etc | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], p.181) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §01 | |
| A reaction: [my linear representation of a tree diagram; bracket-styles show levels] Lowe's levels below these divide according to whether things are 'substances' or not. I've heard Kit Fine tease Lowe for being too simplistic about ontology. |
| 4196 | The main categories of existence are either universal and particular, or abstract and concrete [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some metaphysicians think the fundamental categories of existence are universals and particulars, while other prefer the division between abstract and concrete. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.15) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, in trying to choose between these, it is tempting to think about the capacities of the brain. Which is the cart and which is the horse? |
| 2469 | The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Damn near everything we know about the world (e.g. a mountain) suggests that unimaginably complicated to-ings and fro-ings of bits and pieces at the extreme microlevel manage somehow to converge on stable macrolevel properties. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly true, and is a vital part of the physicalist picture of the mind. Personally I prefer the word 'processes' to 'properties', since no one seems to really know what a property is. A process is an abstraction from events. |
| 18353 | Modes are beings that are related both to substances and to universals [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Modes are real beings that stand in non-contingent formal ontological relations both to individual substances and to immanent universals. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.212) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I pass it on. 'Modes' seem to invite the Razor, if we already have substances and universals. I am no clear about 'instantiation' because I now have the word 'mode' to play with. |
| 7014 | A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: 'Is a particle and my coin is heads' and 'is a particle and my coin is tails' are perfectly well defined predicates and they pick out perfectly well defined (relational) properties of physical particles. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: (Somewhat paraphrased). This is a very nice offering for the case that all predicates are properties, and hence that 'properties' is an entirely conventional category. It strikes me as self-evident that Fodor is not picking out 'natural' properties. |
| 8273 | Is 'the Thames is broad in London' relational, or adverbial, or segmental? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: "The Thames is broad in London" might be taken as 'The Thames is broad-in-London', or as 'The Thames is-in-London broad', or as 'The Thames-in-London is broad'. I would urge the superiority of the second one, as an analysis of the normal meaning. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 5.8) | |
| A reaction: He uses the example to attack the perdurance view of objects (i.e. the third analysis). I think I agree with Lowe, but I'm not sure, and I just love the example. Read the second as 'The Thames is (in London) broad'? 'Is' of existence, or predication? |
| 8285 | I prefer 'modes' to 'tropes', because it emphasises their dependence [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers call particularised properties of objects 'tropes', but I prefer the older term 'mode' (or 'individual accident'), because this term rightly has the implication that such entities are existentially dependent ones, depending on objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the fact that philosophical terminology is not as metaphysically innocent as it sometimes pretends to be. I agree with Lowe. |
| 4234 | Trope theory says blueness is a real feature of objects, but not the same as an identical blue found elsewhere [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The trope theorist holds that the blueness of a blue chair really exists as much as the chair, but is not identified with the blueness of anything else, even if it resembles it exactly. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.361) | |
| A reaction: You are left with explaining how 'resemblance' works if you cannot spot some 'thing' in common. It is an inviting idea, though, because it avoids the ontological baggage of universals. |
| 4235 | Maybe a cushion is just a bundle of tropes, such as roundness, blueness and softness [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The trope theorist says that a cushion is just a 'bundle' of tropes, such as roundness, blueness and softness. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.362) | |
| A reaction: Certainly if you dispense with the idea of substance (which is clearly bad science even if it is good metaphysics), something like this is what remains of a cushion, though it sounds more epistemological than ontological. Only philosophers care about this |
| 4236 | Tropes seem to be abstract entities, because they can't exist alone, but must come in bundles [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Tropes seem to be abstract entities because, unlike concrete entities, they are ontologically dependent; ..there are no 'free' tropes, and they must always be bundled with other appropriate tropes to exist. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.367) | |
| A reaction: Only a Platonist would think that a universal property could 'exist alone'. I presume Aristotle thought universals were real, though bound up with substances. |
| 8295 | Why cannot a trope float off and join another bundle? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Why cannot a certain trope 'float free' of the trope-bundle to which it belongs and migrate to another bundle? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.8) | |
| A reaction: Tropes are said to be dependent on their possessors, but at the same time to exist as particulars. Lowe's suggestion is that you can't have it both ways. A particular sphericity with no sphere does not even make sense. |
| 8286 | Tropes cannot have clear identity-conditions, so they are not objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I do not believe that tropes or modes can have well-defined or fully determinate identity-conditions, and hence do not believe that they should be thought of as 'objects'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: Lowe's account would still allow them to be 'entities'. Any proposal that they have an existence of their own, apart from the objects on which they depend, sounds very misguided. We won't make progress if we don't identify the real properties. |
| 8294 | How can tropes depend on objects for their identity, if objects are just bundles of tropes? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It seems that tropes are identity-dependent upon their possessors, but it is difficult to square this claim with the thesis that the possessors of tropes are themselves just bundles of tropes. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.8) | |
| A reaction: This circularity in all attempts to individuate tropes is Lowe's main reason for rejecting them. It does seem that the sphericity of a ball must be either identified against other (universal) sphericities, or by the sphere that has the property. |
| 8296 | Does a ball snug in plaster have one trope, or two which coincide? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If a round ball fits snugly into a round piece of plaster, do they contain the same roundness trope, or do they contain numerically distinct but exactly similar and coinciding roundness tropes? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.8) | |
| A reaction: A microscope would distinguish them, and they are made of different types of matter. Is a hole in a piece of paper a circular cut and a circular area of space? Neither example looks good for tropes. |
| 18352 | Tropes have existence independently of any entities [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Pure trope theorists must apparently hold that each trope has its identity underivatively, not that it depends for it on or owes it to other entities of any sort. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.207) | |
| A reaction: Lowe defends dependent 'modes' of things, against independent 'tropes'. Good, but he then has to say what the thing is (a modeless 'substance'?), because it can't just be a bundle of modes or tropes. |
| 12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Using dispositional analyses in aid of ontological reductions is what empiricism taught us. If you are down on cats, reduce them to permanent possibilities of sensation; if you are down on electrons, reduce them to possibilities of experimental outcome. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The cats line is phenomenalism; the electrons line is instrumentalism. I like this as a serious warning about dispositions, even where they seem most plausible, as in the disposition of glass to break when struck. Why is it thus disposed? |
| 4197 | The category of universals can be sub-divided into properties and relations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One might want to divide the category of 'universals' into two sub-categories of properties and relations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.15) | |
| A reaction: This means a Platonic form like 'horse' ends up as a cluster of properties and relations. Is a substance not also a universal? |
| 8288 | Sortal terms for universals involve a substance, whereas adjectival terms do not [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I want to distinguish 'substantial' universals from 'non-substantial' universals. The former are denoted by sortal terms, such as 'statue' and 'tiger', whereas the latter are denoted by adjectival terms, such as 'red' and 'spherical'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.3) | |
| A reaction: It is an interesting question whether or not (assuming you are committed to universals) a universal necessarily implies an associated substance. If a property is a power, it must be a power of something. Nominalists will deny his distinction. |
| 8293 | Real universals are needed to explain laws of nature [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I base my case for realism about universals on the need to explain the status of natural laws. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: I need black magic to explain why my watch has disappeared. The key question, then, would be what we understand by the 'laws of nature'. I am inclined to think that scientific essentialism (qv) can build laws out of natural kinds. Idea 6614. |
| 8307 | Particulars are instantiations, and universals are instantiables [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A particular is something (not necessarily an object) which instantiates but is not itself instantiated. Universals, on the other hand, necessarily have instances (or, at least, are instantiable). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This is Lowe's proposal for distinction. It at least establishes the direction of dependency, but I find the notion of 'instantiation' to be as obscure and problematic as the Platonic notion of 'partaking' (see in Ontology|Universals|Platonic Forms). |
| 2475 | Don't define something by a good instance of it; a good example is a special case of the ordinary example [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It's a mistake to try to construe the notion of an instance in terms of the notion of a good instance (e.g. Platonic Forms); the latter is patently a special case of the former, so the right order of exposition is the other way round. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 4) |
| 4232 | Nominalists believe that only particulars exist [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Nominalists believe that only particulars exist. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.352) | |
| A reaction: A neat definition. Hence they deny universals. I suspect that nominalism is incoherent. Rational thought seems easy to create with universals, impossible with just particulars. Robotics is nominalist, which is why it will fail. |
| 7720 | Two things can only resemble one another in some respect, and that may reintroduce a universal [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A problem for resemblance nominalism is that in saying that two particulars 'resemble' one another, it is necessary to specify in what respect they do so (e.g. colour, shape, size), and this threatens to reintroduce what appears to be talk of universals. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: We see resemblance between faces instantly, long before we can specify the 'respects' of the resemblance. This supports the Humean hard-wired view of resemblance, rather than some appeal to Platonic universals. |
| 4205 | 'Is non-self-exemplifying' is a predicate which cannot denote a property (as it would be a contradiction) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Not every meaningful predicate expresses an existing property; thus 'is non-self-exemplifying' cannot refer to a property, because the property would contradict the predicate. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.100) | |
| A reaction: Needs thought. The example is based on Russell's so-called Barber's Paradox. If it can't be a property, can it be a predicate? |
| 8967 | Not all predicates can be properties - 'is non-self-exemplifying', for example [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: We cannot assume that every meaningful predicate necessarily expresses a property that some entity could possess. The predicate 'is non-self-exemplifying' is meaningful, yet it would be contradictory for there to be any such property. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003]) | |
| A reaction: This clinches what I would take to be a foregone conclusion - that you can't know what the world contains just by examining the predicates of the English language. However, I suppose predicates are needed to know properties. |
| 4233 | If 'blueness' is a set of particulars, there is danger of circularity, or using universals, in identifying the set [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If sets are particulars, a nominalist may say that 'blueness' is a set of particulars, but which set? If the particulars 'are blue' this threatens circularity - though resemblance is usually appealed to to avoid this. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.355) | |
| A reaction: This supports my suspicion that nominalism is superficially attractive and 'scientific', but when you dig deep into it the theory won't get off the ground without universals. |
| 8267 | Perhaps concrete objects are entities which are in space-time and subject to causality [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: An obvious suggestion is that concrete objects are denizens of space-time, and hence subject to causality, though Hale objects that languages are plausibly abstract and yet undergo change and so presumably exist in time. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: The identity-conditions for a language are pretty loose. Choosing a counterexample from the mental life of human beings begs a billion questions. I can't think of a problem case beyond the world of human culture. |
| 16130 | To be an object at all requires identity-conditions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The only metaphysically defensible notion of an object is precisely that of an entity which possesses determinate identity-conditions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I think he includes abstract objects in this. I suspect this view of muddling epistemology and ontology. Or overemphasising our conventions, rather than reality. |
| 8265 | Our commitment to the existence of objects should depend on their explanatory value [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Whether objects of a given kind should be thought actually to exist should, in general, be taken to turn on considerations of whether an inclusion of such objects in one's ontology has explanatory value. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Blatantly fictional objects, such as fairies, might have wonderful explanatory value (they place dewdrops on flowers). Our ontological commitments cannot be decided one at a time, because consistency of the whole picture is the key value. |
| 8275 | Objects are entities with full identity-conditions, but there are entities other than objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I distinguish objects as those entities - whether abstract or concrete, universal or particular - which possess fully determinate identity-conditions, but there are, or may be, entities other than objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7) | |
| A reaction: A wave on the sea is a candidate for being an entity but not an object. The distinction is probably not quite common usage, but it strikes as one which philosophers should universally adopt. Lots of entities, and some of them are objects. |
| 7783 | Bodies, properties, relations, events, numbers, sets and propositions are 'things' if they exist [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Not only material bodies but also properties, relations, events, numbers, sets, and propositions are—if they are acknowledged as existing—to be accounted ‘things’. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Things [1995]) | |
| A reaction: There might be lots of borderline cases here. Is the sky a thing? Is air a thing? How is transparency a thing? Is minus-one a thing? Is an incomplete proposition a thing? Etc. |
| 8263 | An object is an entity which has identity-conditions [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: To be an object is simply to be an entity possessing determinate identity-conditions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice clear-cut claim, which sounds good, except that there may be a blurring of ontology and epistemology. Presumably the conditions are for the concept, not for an actual act of identification. Maybe we are too stupid to conceive them. |
| 8268 | Some things (such as electrons) can be countable, while lacking proper identity [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There can be determinate countability even where there is not determinate identity; it is not in dispute that there are two electrons in the shell of a neutral helium atom, even though the identity of electrons is not determinate. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: If the electrons could merge like water drops, we would be unable to say when they became one object. You can roughly count waves on the sea, but when you seek an exact total, the identity problem intrudes and prevents precise counting. |
| 8965 | Neither mere matter nor pure form can individuate a sphere, so it must be a combination [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A sphere's matter could not be what makes it one sphere, since matter lacks intrinsic unity, ..and the form cannot make it that very sphere, since an identical sphere may exemplify that universal. So it is a combination of form and matter. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 5) | |
| A reaction: But how do two aspects of the sphere, neither of which has the power to individuate, achieve individuation when they are combined? Like parents, I suppose. Two totally identical spheres can only be individuated by location. |
| 8303 | Criteria of identity cannot individuate objects, because they are shared among different types [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Criteria of identity never unambiguously determine the kind of objects to which they apply, since many different types of objects can be governed by the same criteria. Cats and dogs share the criterion of identity for animals in general. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: So how do you individuate the type of an object? You could identify 'the thing I dug up yesterday' without being able to individuate it. You can individuate 'the cleverest person in Britain' without being able to identify them. |
| 8292 | Diversity of two tigers is their difference in space-time; difference of matter is a consequence [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: What really makes for the diversity of two tigers is their difference in space-time location, from which their difference in component matter at any time merely follows as a consequence. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: I daresay this is how we manage to identify the diversity of a pair of tigers (epistemology), but is that what their diversity consists in (ontology)? That they employ different matter seems relevant. If you feed one, the other stays hungry (causation). |
| 8291 | Individuation principles identify what kind it is; identity criteria distinguish items of the same kind [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A principle of individuation tells us what is to count as one instance of a given kind, such as one ship. A criterion of identity is what makes for the identity or diversity of items of a given kind, to distinguish this ship from that ship. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: So individuation picks out type/qualitative identity, and identifying picks out token/numerical identity. This agrees with Idea 7926, but is a shift from the usage Lowe mentions in Idea 8290. Common usage makes the technical terms unclear. |
| 4206 | Conventionalists see the world as an amorphous lump without identities, but are we part of the lump? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: For the conventionalist the world is doomed to merge into an amorphous lump with no real individuality or differentiation, ..but we can hardly make our own identity in the world in the way we are supposed to conventionally create identity for objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.113) | |
| A reaction: Very nice argument! We need to 'cut nature at the joints' (Plato), and one joint is screamingly obvious - that between observer and world. You could try denying this, but it would be a bizarre view. |
| 16128 | A 'substance' is an object which doesn't depend for existence on other objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A 'substance' might be defined to be an object which does not depend for its existence upon any other object (where dependency is defined in terms of necessity. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to leave out 'substance', which has too much historical baggage, and talk of minimal things having 'identity', and proper things having 'essence'. |
| 7712 | On substances, Leibniz emphasises unity, Spinoza independence, Locke relations to qualities [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Later philosophers emphasised different strands of Aristotle's concept of substances: Leibniz (in his theory of monads) emphasised their unity; Spinoza emphasised their ontological independence; Locke emphasised their role in relation to qualities. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Note that this Aristotelian idea had not been jettisoned in the late seventeenth century, unlike other Aristotelianisms. I think it is only with the success of atomism in chemistry that the idea of substance is forced to recede. |
| 4204 | Statues can't survive much change to their shape, unlike lumps of bronze, which must retain material [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A statue is a kind of object which cannot survive much change to its shape, unlike a lump of bronze, which cannot survive any change to its material composition. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.70) | |
| A reaction: Also the statue could survive being hollowed out, changing its material composition. Hence a statue is not just a lump of bronze, but we knew that. |
| 16545 | The essence of lumps and statues shows that two objects coincide but are numerically distinct [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is a metaphysically necessary truth, obtaining in virtue of the essences of such objects (of what a bronze statue and a lump of bronze are) that when it exists a bronze statue coincides with a lump of bronze, which is numerically distinct from it. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: I think it is nonsense to treat the lump and statue as two objects. It is essential that a statue be made of a lump, and essential that a lump have a shape, so to treat the lump and the shape as two different objects is a failure to grasp the essence. |
| 16546 | The essence of a bronze statue shows that it could be made of different bronze [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is a metaphysical possibility, obtaining in virtue of the essences of such objects, that the same bronze statue should coincide with different lumps of bronze at different times. (..they have different persistence conditions). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: If the fame of a statue were that it had been made by melting down the shield of Achilles (say), then the bronze it was made of would be its most important feature. Essences are more contextual than Lowe might wish. |
| 13918 | Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Holes are things of such a kind that they can coincide without being identical - as are, for example, shadows and spots of light. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: His point is that they thereby fail one of the standard tests for being an 'object'. |
| 8279 | The identity of composite objects isn't fixed by original composition, because how do you identify the origin? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is not at all clear that the identity of a composite object can be fixed by the identity of its original composition, since there are good grounds for claiming that the reverse is in fact the case. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: That is, how could you identify the origin if you didn't know what it was that had originated? Nice point. See also Idea 8274. Vicars must make sure they baptise the right baby. |
| 16551 | Grasping an essence is just grasping a real definition [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: All that grasping an essence amounts to is understanding a real definition, that is, understanding a special kind of proposition. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 7) | |
| A reaction: He refuses to 'reify' an essence, and says it is not an entity, so he seems to think that the definition is the essence, but Aristotle and I take the essence to be what is picked out by the correct definition - not the definition itself. |
| 13921 | All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Things must have an essence, in the sense of 'what it is to be the individual of that kind', or it would make no sense to say we can talk or think comprehendingly about things at all. If we don't know what it is, how can we think about it? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: Lowe presents this as a sort of Master Argument for essences. I think he is working with the wrong notion of essence. All he means is that things must have identities to be objects of thought. Why equate identity with essence, and waste a good concept? |
| 16542 | Explanation can't give an account of essence, because it is too multi-faceted [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Explanation is a multifaceted one, with many species (logical, mathematical, causal, teleological, and psychological), ..so it is not a notion fit to be appealed to in order to frame a perspicuous account of essence. That is one species of explanation. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: This directly attacks the core of my thesis! His parenthetical list does not give types of explanation. If I say this explanation is 'psychological', that says nothing about what explanation is. All of his instances could rest on essences. |
| 13922 | Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: To know something's essence is not to be acquainted with some further thing of a special kind, but simply to understand what exactly that thing is. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: I think he is wrong about this, or at least is working with an unhelpful notion of essence. Identity is one thing, and essence is another. I take essences to be certain selected features of things, which explain their nature. |
| 16552 | If we must know some entity to know an essence, we lack a faculty to do that [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If knowledge of essence were by acquaintance of a special kind of entity, we would doubt our ability to grasp the essence of things. For what faculty could be involved in this special kind of acquaintance? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 7) | |
| A reaction: This is Lockean empirical scepticism about essences, but I take the view that sometimes you can be acquainted with an essence, but more often you correctly infer it from you acquaintance - and this is just what scientists do. |
| 6618 | A 'substance' is a thing that remains the same when its properties change [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: By 'substance', in the context of the mind, we mean a persisting object or thing which can undergo changes in its properties over time while remaining one and the same thing. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A neat account of the traditional philosophical notion of a substance. It invites the obvious question of how you know that a thing is the same if all of its properties seem to have changed (as with Descartes' wax). Epistemology discredits ontology. |
| 8271 | An object 'endures' if it is always wholly present, and 'perdures' if different parts exist at different times [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The 'endurance' view is that an object persists by being 'wholly present' at more than one time, and the 'perdurance' view is that an object has different temporal parts which exist at different times. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 5) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to say that only a philosopher would come up with a view as bizarre as the second one. Trying to imagine God's view of time has led to a lot of confusion. Endurance seems to need substance, so bundle views of objects encourage perdurance. |
| 8272 | How can you identify temporal parts of tomatoes without referring to tomatoes? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The temporal parts approach to identity appears to be viciously circular, for how are the 'temporal parts' of tomatoes to be individuated and identified save by reference to the very tomatoes of which they are parts? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: (This attacks the 'perdurance' view - Idea 8271) Something wrong here. Isn't Lowe begging the question, by assuming that a tomato at an instant IS the tomato? To know what a tomato is, you must spend time with it. |
| 4198 | If 5% replacement preserves a ship, we can replace 4% and 4% again, and still retain the ship [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we say that up to 5% of a ship's parts can be replaced without the ship ceasing to exist, we could replace 4% and then 4% again, and it would retain its identity, if identity is transitive. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.26) | |
| A reaction: One suspected that all attempts at precision with the ship of Theseus were doomed, but this nicely demonstrates it. |
| 4199 | A renovation or a reconstruction of an original ship would be accepted, as long as the other one didn't exist [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If a ship is renovated without reconstruction of original parts, we happily identify the renovation with the original; if there was a reconstruction without the renovated version, we would identify the reconstruction with the original. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.27) | |
| A reaction: This really shakes our belief in identity as a natural rather than mental phenomenon. The existence of clones undermines our normal idea of personal identity. |
| 4200 | If old parts are stored and then appropriated, they are no longer part of the original (which is the renovated ship). [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The parts of a ship in a warehouse belong to no ship at all, ..and once they are appropriated by another ship they cease to be parts of the original, ..so it seems that the renovated ship (not the reconstruction) is identified with the original. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.31) | |
| A reaction: The parts in the warehouse could belong to the original (they might even labelled), but assigning them to a new ship does indeed look like a crucial break in the continuity. |
| 8305 | A clear idea of the kind of an object must precede a criterion of identity for it [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: As Locke clearly understood, one must first have a clear conception of what kind of object one is dealing with in order to extract a criterion of identity for objects of that kind from that conception. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Archaeologist face objects which they can number, remember and take pride in, without having a clue what kind of thing they are dealing with. The two processes may not be entirely distinct. |
| 8290 | One view is that two objects of the same type are only distinguished by differing in matter [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One venerable tradition, exemplified in Aquinas, has it that matter is the 'principle of individuation', that is, that all that can be guaranteed to distinguish two concrete thing of the same kind is the different matter of which they are composed. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be 'identity-conditions' rather than 'individuation', according to Idea 7926. The problem would be how to identify that particular matter, apart from its composing that particular object. Replacing planks on a ship seems unimportant. |
| 13920 | Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Any individual thing must be a thing of some general kind - because, at the very least, it must belong to some ontological category. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: Where does the law that 'everything must have a category' come from? I'm baffled by remarks of this kind. Where do we get the categories from? From observing the individuals. So which has priority? Not the categories. Is God a kind? |
| 4203 | Identity of Indiscernibles (same properties, same thing) ) is not Leibniz's Law (same thing, same properties) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The Identity of Indiscernibles (no two objects can possess exactly the same properties) is not the same as Leibniz's Law (what is true of a thing is true of what is identical with that thing). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.62) | |
| A reaction: Two things can't be the same because we can't discern the difference, which may be our inadequacy. But if they actually have identical properties, it is hard to see how they could be different. A universe with just two perfect spheres is couterexample. |
| 15079 | 'Conceptual' necessity is narrow logical necessity, true because of concepts and logical laws [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I can accept 'conceptual' necessity, as long as it is only identified with 'narrow' logical necessity. For I take it that the 'conceptually' necessary is that which is true solely in virtue of concepts together with the laws of logic. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: In the narrow version of logical necessity (Idea 8260) some definitions are required in addition to the mere laws of logic. This implies that the concepts are dependent of definitions, which is a bit restrictive. Aren't we allowed undefined concepts? |
| 16533 | Logical necessities, based on laws of logic, are a proper sub-class of metaphysical necessities [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If logically necessary truths are consequences of the laws of logic, then I think they are only a proper sub-class of the class of metaphysically necessary truths. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 1) | |
| A reaction: The problem for this is unusual and bizarre systems of logic, or systems that contradict one another. This idea is only plausible if you talk about the truths derived from some roughly 'classical' core of logic. 'Tonk' won't do it! |
| 16063 | Metaphysical necessity is logical necessity 'broadly construed' [Lowe, by Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Lowe (1998) defines metaphysical necessity in terms of logical necessity 'broadly contrued'. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998]) by Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM - The Impossibility of Superdupervenience n 3 | |
| A reaction: [I seem to have missed this simple thought in Lowe 1998 - must revisit]. Both metaphysical and logical necessity can be taken as 'true in all possible worlds', but that doesn't make them the same truths. |
| 16531 | 'Metaphysical' necessity is absolute and objective - the strongest kind of necessity [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: By 'metaphysical' necessity I mean necessity of the strongest possible kind - absolute necessity - and I take it to be an objective kind of necessity, rather than being something mind-dependent. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 1) | |
| A reaction: See Bob Hale for the possibility that 'absolute' and 'metaphysical' necessity might come apart. I think I believe in metaphysical necessity, but I'm uneasy about 'absolute' necessity. That may be discredited by the sceptics. |
| 8260 | Logical necessity can be 'strict' (laws), or 'narrow' (laws and definitions), or 'broad' (all logical worlds) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: 'Strict' logical necessity is true by the laws of logic alone; 'narrow' logical necessity is true by the laws of logic plus definitions of non-logical terms; 'broad' logical necessity is true in every possible world where the laws of logic hold. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Lowe then says the third is close to 'metaphysical' necessity. I am unable to distinguish the third from the first. You can't claim that a logical implication holds in this world, but not in another possible world which has the same rules of implication. |
| 4195 | It is impossible to reach a valid false conclusion from true premises, so reason itself depends on possibility [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning itself depends upon a grasp of possibilities, because a valid argument is one in which it is not possible for the conclusion to be false if the premises are true. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.11) | |
| A reaction: A very valuable corrective to my pessimistic view of philosophers' attempts to understand metaphysical necessity. But if we can only grasp natural necessity, then all reason is naturalistic. |
| 12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Statistically, logically, nomologically, conceptually, and metaphysically possible. That's all the kinds of possibility there are this week, but feel free to add others. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.4.3) | |
| A reaction: There's also epistemic possibility (possibility 'for all I know'), but I suppose that isn't the real thing. How about 'imaginative possibility' (possibility 'as far as I can imagine')? |
| 16131 | The metaphysically possible is what acceptable principles and categories will permit [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: What is 'metaphysically' possible hinges …on the question of whether acceptable metaphysical principles and categories permit the existence of some state of affairs. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: Lowe breezes along with confident assertions like this. I once heard Kit Fine tease him for over-confidence. All you do is work out 'acceptable' principles and categories, and you've cracked it! |
| 16532 | 'Epistemic' necessity is better called 'certainty' [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: 'Epistemic' necessity is more properly to be called 'certainty'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 1) | |
| A reaction: Sounds wrong. Surely I can be totally certain of a contingent truth? |
| 16543 | If an essence implies p, then p is an essential truth, and hence metaphysically necessary [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we can truly affirm that it is part of the essence of some entity that p is the case, then p is an essential truth and so a metaphysically necessary truth. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: This feels too quick. He is trying to expound the idea (which I like) that necessity derives from essences, and not vice versa. Is it a metaphysical necessity that there are no moths in my wardrobe, because mothballs have driven them away? Maybe. |
| 16544 | Metaphysical necessity is either an essential truth, or rests on essential truths [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A metaphysically necessary truth is a truth which is either an essential truth or a truth that obtains in virtue of the essences of two or more distinct things. Hence all metaphysical necessity is grounded in essence. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: Lowe is endeavouring to give an exposition of the approach advocated by Kit Fine. I divide necessities 'because of' things (such as essences) from necessities 'for' things, such as situations or events. |
| 4207 | We might eliminate 'possible' and 'necessary' in favour of quantification over possible worlds [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It may be possible to eliminate the modal operators (in English, 'is possible' and 'is necessary') in favour of quantifier expressions with variables ranging over possible worlds. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Hence 'necessary' becomes 'exists/is true in all possible worlds'. Deep problems, but at least we must show that referring to 'possible' worlds isn't a circular explanation of 'is possible'. |
| 8320 | Does every abstract possible world exist in every possible world? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds, conceived of as abstracta, surely exist 'in every possible world'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 12) | |
| A reaction: A possible very infinite regress, if a particular possible world is distinguished from another only by being perceived from Actual Word 1 or Actual World 2.. How many possible worlds are there? The standard answer is 'lots', rather than infinity. |
| 16538 | We could give up possible worlds if we based necessity on essences [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we explicate the notion of metaphysical necessity in terms of the notion of essence, rather than vice versa, this may enable us to dispense with the language of possible worlds as a means of explicating modal statements. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the approach I favour, though I am not convinced that the two approaches are in competition, since essentialism gives the driving force for necessity, whereas possible worlds map the logic and semantics of it. |
| 7289 | Do not try to do things, or to master knowledge; just be empty [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Do not try to do things. Do not try to master knowledge. ...Just be empty. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Stands as a nice challenge to the assumption that knowledge is a good thing. Aristotle's views make a nice contrast (Ideas 548 and 549). Personally I totally agree with Aristotle, and with the western tradition. |
| 12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Maybe some of your beliefs are inferred 'online' from what you have in your files, along with your inferential rules. 'Shakespeare didn't have a telephone' is a classic example, which we infer if the occasion arises. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3 App) | |
| A reaction: A highly persuasive example. There seem to be a huge swathe of blatantly obvious beliefs (especially negative ones) which may never cross our minds during an entire lifetime, but to which we certainly subscribe. |
| 6635 | Causal theories of belief make all beliefs true, and can't explain belief about the future [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The causal theory of beliefs seems condemned to treat all beliefs as true, which is absurd, …and we do not want to say that tomorrow's rain 'causes' today's belief that it will rain tomorrow. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed at Fodor. A false belief might be caused by reality if one had one's internal wires crossed, and a belief about the future might be caused by events happening now. This theory is not dead. |
| 2502 | How do you count beliefs? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: There is no agreed way of counting beliefs. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.16) |
| 12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Thought about the world is prior to thought about how to change the world. Accordingly, knowing that is prior to knowing how. Descartes was right, and Ryle was wrong. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The classical example is knowing how to ride a bicycle, when few people can explain what is involved. Clearly you need quite a bit of propositional knowledge before you step on a bike. How does Fodor's claim work for animals? |
| 6619 | Perhaps 'I' no more refers than the 'it' in 'it is raining' [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the 'I' in 'I think' no more serves to pick out a certain object than does the 'it' in 'it is raining'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: A nice example to remind us that not all English pronouns have genuine reference. You could reply that 'it' does refer, to the weather; or that you can switch to 'you think', but not to 'they/we are raining'. |
| 6643 | 'Ecological' approaches say we don't infer information, but pick it up directly from reality [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The 'ecological' approach to perception resists the idea that our brains have to construct information about our environment by inference from sensations, because the information is already present in the environment, available to well-tuned senses. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: The psychologist J.J.Gibson is the source of this view. This pushes us towards direct realism, and away from representative theories, which are based too much on problems arising from illusions (which are freak cases). Interesting. |
| 8280 | While space may just be appearance, time and change can't be, because the appearances change [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although the appearance of distance and so of space may conceivably be no more than an appearance (as Berkeley held), the appearance of change and so of time cannot be no more than appearance - for the appearance of change involves change (in minds). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.9) | |
| A reaction: This would seem to place some sort of limit on idealism. Since it doesn't offer a barrier to solipsism, though, it is not much consolation. We mustn't forget that Parmenides and Zeno of Elea proved that change is just an illusion. |
| 2501 | Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Berkeley seems to have believed that tables and chairs are logically homogeneous with afterimages. I assume that he was wrong to believe this. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.16) |
| 3008 | Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If I had to design homo sapiens, I would have made commonsense knowledge of homo sapiens psychology innate; that way nobody would have to spend time learning it. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.132) |
| 2990 | Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Contrary to commonsense, it looks as though much of what is in the mind is unlearned. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 15) |
| 3009 | Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: God gave the male stickleback the idea that whatever is red is a rival. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.133) |
| 8276 | Properties or qualities are essentially adjectival, not objectual [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I consider properties or qualities to be essentially adjectival rather than objectual in nature (and the same applies to relations, though they are adjectival to more than one object). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am inclined to say that properties are either real causal powers (functions of objects?), such as being sharp, or else they are subjective ways of distinguishing things (e.g. colours). Or fictions. 'Adjectival' is too vague. |
| 6638 | One must be able to visually recognise a table, as well as knowing its form [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A bare knowledge that tables have a particular form will not enable one to recognise a table visually, unless one knows how something with such a form typically appears or looks from a variety of different angles. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a rather significant point, if we are trying to work out how concepts and models operate in the process of perception. Lowe points out that with electrons, we have some knowledge of the form, but no capacity for recognition. |
| 6644 | Computationalists object that the 'ecological' approach can't tell us how we get the information [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Computational psychologists object to the 'ecological' approach to perception (with its externalist, direct realist picture), because it leaves us entirely in the dark as to how our senses 'pick up' information about the environment. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: I find myself siding with the computationalists, but then I have always favoured the representational view of perception among philosophers. Lowe comments that both approaches neglect actual experience. We construct models, e.g. of London. |
| 6647 | Comparing shapes is proportional in time to the angle of rotation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: When two objects, one of them rotated, are compared, the length of time it takes the subjects to determine they are of the same shape is roughly proportional to the size of angle of rotation, ...which suggests analogue modes of representation. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: I consider this to be highly significant for our whole understanding of the mind, which I think of as a set of models organised like a database. Think about the weather, phenomenalism, London, the Renaissance, your leg. You play with models. |
| 6639 | The 'disjunctive' theory of perception says true perceptions and hallucinations need have nothing in common [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The 'disjunctive' theory of perception says that we have either veridical perception or else hallucination, but there is no common element in the form of a 'perceptual experience' which would be present in either case and merely caused in different ways. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: McDowell is associated with this view. It seems to be another attempt to get rid of sense-data. It seems odd, though, to say that a hallucination of a dagger has nothing in common at all with experience of real daggers. Why did hallucinations evolve? |
| 2465 | Maybe explaining the mechanics of perception will explain the concepts involved [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Why mightn't fleshing out the standard psychological account of perception itself count as learning what perceptual justification amounts to? | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 1) |
| 7710 | Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: According to one school of thought, perception is simply a mode of belief-acquisition,and there is no reason to suppose that any element of sensation is literally involved in perception. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Blindsight would be an obvious supporting case for this view. I think this point is crucial in understanding what is wrong with Jackson's 'knowledge argument' (involving Mary, see Idea 7377). Sensation gives knowledge, so it can't be knowledge. |
| 7711 | Science requires a causal theory - perception of an object must be an experience caused by the object [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Only a causal theory of perception will respect the facts of physiology and physics ...meaning a theory which maintains that for a subject to perceive a physical object the subject should enjoy some appropriate perceptual experience caused by the object. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: If I hallucinate an object, then presumably I am not allowed to say that I 'perceive' it, but that seems to make the causal theory an idle tautology. If we are in virtual reality then there aren't any objects. |
| 6640 | A causal theorist can be a direct realist, if all objects of perception are external [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A causal theorist can be a 'direct realist' in the sense that he can hold that the only objects of perception are external objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: There still seem to be problems with perceiving reflections, or very distant objects (the time-lag problem), or perceiving 'secondary' qualities. |
| 6645 | If blindsight shows we don't need perceptual experiences, the causal theory is wrong [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If we don't need to have perceptual experiences in order to see things (as 'blindsight' might suggest), the causal theory of perception cannot be correct. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is because the causal theory implies a chain of events culminating in experience as the last stage. There is no suggestion, though, that unconscious perception would be non-causal, as it bypasses all the problems about consciousness. |
| 6637 | How could one paraphrase very complex sense-data reports adverbially? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: How could one paraphrase the sense-datum report 'I am aware of a red square sense-datum to the right of a blue round sense-datum' in an adverbial way? 'I am appeared to redly and squarely and roundly and bluely'? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: It is a nice question, but not an instant refutation of the adverbial theory. Vision may be a complex tangle of modes of seeing things, rather than a large collection of sense-data. As I look out of the window, how many sense-data do I experience? |
| 2504 | Rationalism can be based on an evolved computational brain with innate structure [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Pinker's rationalism involves four main ideas: mind is a computational system, which is massively modular with a lot of innate structure resulting from evolution. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) |
| 2493 | According to empiricists abstraction is the fundamental mental process [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: According to empiricists, the fundamental mental process is not theory construction but abstraction. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.12) |
| 3978 | Associations are held to connect Ideas together in the way the world is connected together [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The laws of associations were held to explicate the semantic coherence of intentional processes, which adjust the causal relations among Ideas to reflect corresponding relations among the things that they're ideas of. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.296) | |
| A reaction: With the support of evolution, and the backing of a correspondence theory of truth, plus more sophistication in the associations, this might work. |
| 12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The essential problem is to explain how thinking manages reliably to preserve truth; and Associationism, as Kant rightly pointed out to Hume, hasn't the resources to do so. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: One might be able to give an associationist account of truth-preservation if one became a bit more externalist about it, so that the normal association patterns track their connections with the external world. |
| 12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Pragmatism is perhaps the worst idea that philosophy ever had. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Not an argument, but an interesting sign of the times. Most major modern American philosophers, such as Quine, seem to fit some loose label of 'pragmatist'. I always smell a feeble relativism, and a refusal to face the interesting questions. |
| 2494 | Rationalists say there is more to a concept than the experience that prompts it [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: That there is more in the content of a concept than there is in the experiences that prompt us to form it is the burden of the traditional rationalist critique of empiricism (as worked out by Leibniz and Kant). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.12) |
| 16534 | 'Intuitions' are just unreliable 'hunches'; over centuries intuitions change enormously [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I suspect that 'intuitions' and 'hunches' are pretty much the same thing, and pretty useless as sources of knowledge. …Things that seemed intuitively true to our forebears a century or two ago often by no means seem intuitively true to us now. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 2) | |
| A reaction: I don't accept this. Intuitions change a lot over the centuries because the reliable knowledge which informs intuitions has also changed a lot. Arguments and evidence may nail individual truths, but coherence must rest on intuition. |
| 6667 | There are memories of facts, memories of practical skills, and autobiographical memory [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Memory of facts is quite different from memory of practical skills, and both are quite distinct from what is sometimes called personal or autobiographical memory. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: If we accept David Marshall's proposal (Idea 6668), then all of the mind is memory, of many different types, and so the above analysis will be much too simple. |
| 2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Premeditated cognitive management is possible if knowing the contents of one's thoughts would tell you what would make them true and what would cause you to have them. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: I love the idea of 'cognitive management'. Since belief is fairly involuntary, I subject myself to the newspapers, books, TV and conversation which will create the style of beliefs to which I aspire. Why? |
| 6642 | Psychologists say illusions only occur in unnatural and passive situations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists point out that illusions almost always occur in unnatural environments in which subjects are prevented from exploiting the natural interplay between perception and action. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: It has always struck me that philosophers make a great deal out of illusions, but I don't think I have ever had one. I don't know anyone who has seen a non-existent dagger. |
| 23403 | You know you were dreaming when you wake, but there might then be a greater awakening from that [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Often after waking do you know that your dream was a dream. Still, there may be an even greater awakening after which you will know that this, too, was just a greater dream. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], 02), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 9.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the key to the full horror of dream scepticism (as dramatised in the film 'The Matrix'). We can never know whether there is yet another awakening about to occur. |
| 7285 | Did Chuang Tzu dream he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dream he was Chuang Tzu? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt that I was a butterfly, flitting around and enjoying myself. Suddenly I woke and was Chuang Tzu again. But had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Plato (Idea 2047) also spotted this problem, later made famous by Descartes (Idea 2250). Given the size of a butterfly's brain, this suggests that Chuang Tzu was a dualist. What can't I take the idea seriously, when reason says I should? |
| 2461 | An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Experimentation is an occasional and more or less self-conscious exercise in what informal thinking does all the time without thinking about it. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
| 2454 | We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: A creature that knows what makes its thoughts true and what would cause it to have them, could therefore cause itself to have true thoughts. …This would explain why experimentation is so close to the heart of our cognitive style. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
| 2455 | Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: You can put yourself into a situation where you may be caused to believe that P. Putting a question to someone who is in the know is one species of this behaviour, and putting a question to Nature (an experiment) is another. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
| 2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: To be in the audience for an experiment you have to believe what the experimenter believes about what the outcome would mean, but not necessarily what the outcome will be. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
| 4223 | Unfalsifiability may be a failure in an empirical theory, but it is a virtue in metaphysics [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although unfalsifiability is probably a defect in scientific hypothesis, because it is deprived of empirical content, it seems rather to be a virtue in a metaphysical hypothesis. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.241) | |
| A reaction: Presumably nothing could ever be found to count against a necessary truth. A nice point. 'Find me an instance where 2+2 is not 4'. |
| 2458 | Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Theories function as links in the causal chains that run from environmental outcomes to the beliefs that they cause the inquirer to have. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) |
| 8968 | If the flagpole causally explains the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Two distinct entities cannot explain each other, in the same sense of 'explain'. If the height of the flagpole causally explains the length of the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole, though it may predict the latter. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 12) | |
| A reaction: This seems related to the question of the direction of time/causation. Some explanations can be benignly circular, as when a married couple have a passion for chinese food. [S.Bromberger 1966 invented the flagpole case]. |
| 4193 | The behaviour of persons and social groups seems to need rational rather than causal explanation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There are some entities which exist in time and space (such as persons or social groups) of which the behaviour seems to be subject to rational rather than merely causal explanation. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.2) | |
| A reaction: This begs of the question of whether 'rational' can be reduced to causal. We can't manage causal explanations of the very complex, so we use broad-brush second-best explanations? |
| 2503 | Empirical approaches see mind connections as mirrors/maps of reality [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Empirical approaches to cognition say the human mind is a blank slate at birth; experiences write on the slate, and association extracts and extrapolates trends from the record of experience. The mind is an image of statistical regularities of the world. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: The 'blank slate' is an exaggeration. The mind at least has the tools to make associations. He tries to make it sound implausible, but the word 'extrapolates' contains a wealth of possibilities that could build into a plausible theory. |
| 2508 | The function of a mind is obvious [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Like hands, you don't have to know how the mind evolved to make a pretty shrewd guess at what it's for; for example, that it's to think with. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: I like this. This is one of the basic facts of philosophy of mind, and it frequently gets lost in the fog. It is obvious that the components of the mind (say, experience and intentionality) will be better understood if their function is remembered. |
| 12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Mental states have causal powers. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.2.3) | |
| A reaction: I quote this because it gives you the link between a general account of causal powers as basic to reality, and an active account of what the mind is. It has to be a key link in a decent modern unified account of the world. See Idea 12638. |
| 6641 | Externalists say minds depend on environment for their very existence and identity [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Externalism maintains that our minds 'reach out' into our physical environment, at least in the sense that our states of mind can depend for their very existence and identity upon what things that environment contains. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: A nice statement of the externalist view. Does this mean that a brain in a vat would not have a mind? Does a photograph 'reach out' to its subject-matter? |
| 2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: In the Representation Theory of Mind, programs (the 'laws of thought') may be explicitly represented, but data structures (the 'contents of thought') have to be. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 25) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is because content is where mental events actually meet up with the reality being considered. It may be an abstract procedure, but if it doesn't plug into reality then it isn't thought, but merely activity, like that of the liver. |
| 2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I hold that psychological laws are intentional, that semantics is purely informational, and that thinking is computation (and that it is possible to hold all of these assumptions at once). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: When he puts it baldly like that, it doesn't sound terribly persuasive. Thinking is 'computation'? Raw experience is irrelevant? What is it 'like' to spot an interesting connection between two propositions or concepts? It's not like adding 7 and 5. |
| 6617 | The main questions are: is mind distinct from body, and does it have unique properties? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy of mind seems to address the questions of whether the mind is distinct from the body, and whether the mind has properties, such as consciousness, which are unique to it. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simple enough, but the modern debate seems to centre on the second question, which is here stated nice and clearly. Of course, wild garlic has a unique smell, but that doesn't quite qualify as a 'unique property'. Are the properties of mind unpredictable? |
| 6626 | 'Phenomenal' consciousness is of qualities; 'apperceptive' consciousness includes beliefs and desires [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There is 'phenomenal' consciousness, which is what is distinctive of qualitative states of experience, and 'apperceptive' consciousness, which is awareness of all of one's mental states, including beliefs and desires. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: I am not convinced that this distinction is sharp enough to be useful, though I approve of trying to analyse the components of consciousness. Is there 'intentional' consciousness? Desires, and even beliefs, can have qualities. |
| 2453 | We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I think it is likely that we are the only creatures that can think about the contents of our thoughts. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a major idea. If you ask me the traditional question - what is the essential difference between us and other animals? - this is my answer (not language, or reason). We are the metathinkers. |
| 15473 | How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Fodor asks the stirring and basic question 'How does anything get outside itself?' | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by C.B. Martin - The Mind in Nature 03.6 | |
| A reaction: Is this one of those misconceived questions, like major issues concerning 'what's it like to be?' In what sense am I outside myself? Is a mind any more mysterious than a shadow? |
| 2485 | Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Intentional Realism is the idea that our intentional mental states causally explain our behaviour; so holistic semantics (which says no two people have the same intentional states, or share generalisations) is irrealistic about intentional mental states. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: ...presumably because two people CAN have the same behaviour. The key question would be whether the intentional states have to be conscious. |
| 2981 | Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor] |
| Full Idea: For Fodor the intentionality of the propositional-attitude vocabulary of our folk psychology is the outward expression of the inward intentionality of the language of the brain. | |
| From: comment on Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by William Lyons - Approaches to Intentionality p.39 | |
| A reaction: I would be very cautious about this. Folk psychology works, so it must have a genuine basis in how brains work, but it breaks down in unusual situations, and might even be a total (successful) fiction. |
| 15494 | We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It's not clear what the point would be of an explanation of the intentionality of attitudes which presupposes objects that are intentional intrinsically. Why not just say that the attitudes are? | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], Ch.3) |
| 7326 | Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Sooner or later the physicists will complete the catalogue of ultimate and irreducible things, with the likes of spin, charm and charge. But aboutness won't be on the list; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], 4 Intro) | |
| A reaction: I totally agree with this, which I take to be a warning to John Searle against including something called 'intrinsic intentionality' into his ontology. Intentionality 'emerges' out of certain complex brain activity. |
| 3976 | Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If there is to be an intentional science, there must be semantically evaluable things which have causal powers, and there must be laws relating beliefs and desires to one another, and to actions. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.293) | |
| A reaction: The semantics and causation sound fair enough, but the prospect of finding laws looks bleak (though, contrary to Davidson, I don't see why they can't exist). |
| 3980 | Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It may be that intentional states are relations to mental symbols, and mental processes are implemented by causal relations among these symbols. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.296) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to see how something could have causal powers just by being a symbol. The theory needs something else to drive the causation. |
| 6646 | The brain may have two systems for vision, with only the older one intact in blindsight [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some physiologists maintain that the human brain is equipped with two different visual systems, an older one and a more recently evolved one, only the first of which is intact in blindsight subjects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: Ramachandran (on TV) suggested that lizards lack the newer system, and therefore may not actually be conscious. The proposal of two systems seems to make nice sense of an odd phenomenon. We clearly have a non-conscious route to visual information. |
| 8966 | Properties are facets of objects, only discussable separately by an act of abstraction [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: In no sense is a property a 'constituent' of an object: it is merely a 'facet' or 'aspect' of an object - something which we can talk about or think of separately from that object only by an act of abstraction. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 8) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be in tune with traditional abstractionism, even though Lowe is committed to the reality of universals. To what do I refer when I say 'I like your car, apart from its colour'? |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The ways in which different kinds of thing are similar to one another aren't, in general, similar to one another. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.4) | |
| A reaction: Nice, but I think one would say that they lack similarity at the level of primary thought, but have obvious similarity (as concept-connectors) at the level of meta-thought. |
| 6665 | Persons are selves - subjects of experience, with reflexive self-knowledge [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that persons are selves - that is, they are subjects of experience which have the capacity to recognised themselves as being individual subjects of experience; selves possess reflexive self-knowledge. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: I would express this as 'a capacity for meta-thought'. I increasingly see that as the hallmark of homo sapiens, and the key quality I look for in assessing the intelligence of aliens. Very intelligent people are exceptionally self-aware. |
| 2506 | If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If there is a community of computers living in my head, there had also better be somebody who is in charge; and, by God, it had better be me. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: Dennett quotes this as a quaintly old-fashioned view. I agree quite strongly with Fodor, for reasons that Dennett should like - evolutionary ones. A mind is a useless tool without central co-ordination. What makes my long-term plans? It isn't anarchy! |
| 6670 | If my brain could survive on its own, I cannot be identical with my whole body [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If, as seems intuitively plausible, I could survive with my brain detached from the rest of my body, I most certainly cannot be identical with my whole body. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: A key mistake is to treat the notion of 'I' as all-or-nothing. My surviving brain is much more like me than my surviving kidney, but the notion of my brain saying to my family 'it's me in that jar over there' sounds wrong. It is a bit of me. |
| 6671 | It seems impossible to get generally applicable mental concepts from self-observation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It seems impossible for me to acquire perfectly general concepts of thought and feeling, applicable to other people as well as to myself, purely from some queer kind of mental self-observation, but this is what the observational model demands. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand the word 'queer' here, which seems part of an odd modern fashion for denigrating introspection. It is right, though, that the acquisition of general mental concepts from my mind seems to depend on analogy, which is a suspect method. |
| 7714 | Personal identity is a problem across time (diachronic) and at an instant (synchronic) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There is the question of the identity of a person over or across time ('diachronic' personal identity), and there is also the question of what makes for personal identity at a time ('synchronic' personal identity). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be the first and most important distinction in the philosophy of personal identity, and they regularly get run together. Locke, for example, has an account of synchronic identity, which is often ignored. It applies to objects too. |
| 6666 | All human languages have an equivalent of the word 'I' [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Every human language appears to have a word or expression equivalent to the English word 'I'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: If this is true (what is his evidence?) I take it to be very significant support for what I take to be obvious anyway, that the mind/brain has a central controlling core, which understands and decides, and which is the most valued part of us. |
| 7277 | The perfect man has no self [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: As the saying goes, 'The perfect man has no self' | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be quoted with approval. This is interesting because it implies that lesser beings do have a self, and that having a self is a moral issue, and one which can be controlled. One could, I suppose, concentrate on externals. |
| 7286 | To see with true clarity, your self must be irrelevant [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: When a man discerns his own self as irrelevant, he sees with true clarity. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Seeing 'with clarity' is only one of the ways of seeing, and one mustn't unquestioningly assume that it is the best. Wisdom should contemplate vision with and without the self, and then rise higher and compare the two views. Compare Parfit (Idea 5518). |
| 8289 | The idea that Cartesian souls are made of some ghostly 'immaterial' stuff is quite unwarranted [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The vulgar notion, propagated by some modern physicalist philosophers, that Cartesian souls are supposed to be made of some sort of ghostly, 'immaterial' stuff - a near contradiction in terms - is quite unwarranted. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the service which can be offered by this database. See Idea 3423 for an illustration of the sort of thing which Lowe is attacking. See Idea 5011 for a quotation from Descartes on the subject. I leave the decision with my visitor... |
| 2446 | Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The Cartesian view is that the interaction problem does arise, but is unsolvable because interaction is miraculous. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: A rather unsympathetic statement of the position. Cartesians might think that God could explain to us how interaction works. Cartesians are not mysterians, I think, but they see no sign of any theory of interaction. |
| 2445 | Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The question how mental representations could be both semantic, like propositions, and causal, like rocks, trees, and neural firings, is arguably just the interaction problem all over again. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: Interesting way of presenting the problem. If you seem to be confronting the interaction problem, you have probably drifted into a bogus dualist way of thinking. Retreat, and reformulate you questions and conceptual apparatus, till the question vanishes. |
| 2599 | Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The avoidance of epiphenomenalism requires making it plausible that intentional properties can meet sufficient conditions for causal responsibility. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.154) | |
| A reaction: A wordy way of saying we either have epiphenomenalism, or the mind had better do something - and a good theory will show how. The biggest problem of the mind may not be Chalmer's Hard Question (qualia), but how thought-contents cause things. |
| 6625 | If qualia are causally inert, how can we even know about them? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The idea that 'qualia' exist but are causally inert is difficult to sustain: for if they are causally inert, how can we even know about them? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: The brain might be a special case. I can't know about a 'causally inert' object in my kitchen, but I might know about it if in some way I AM that object. Personally, though, I think everything that exists is causally active. |
| 3001 | Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Behaviourists had trouble providing a robust construal of mental causation (and hence had no logical space for a psychology of mental processes). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
| A reaction: If they could reduce all mental events to stimulus-response, that seems to fall within the normal procedures of physical causation. There is no problem of mental causation if your ontology is entirely physical. |
| 6621 | You can only identify behaviour by ascribing belief, so the behaviour can't explain the belief [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One must already understand what it means to ascribe to someone a belief that it is raining in order to be able to generate the items on the list of rain-behaviour, so the list cannot be used to explain what it means to ascribe to someone such a belief. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This is thought by many to be a decisive objection of behaviourism, because it makes the enterprise hopelessly circular. If I put up an umbrella when it was dry, you would probably infer that I believed it was raining. |
| 2467 | Functionalists see pains as properties involving relations and causation [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Functionalists claim that pains and the like are higher-order, relational properties that things have in virtue of the pattern of causal interactions that they (can or do) enter into. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: The whole idea of a property being purely 'relational' strikes me as dubious (or even nonsense). "Is north of" is a relation, but it is totally derived from more basical physical geographical properties. |
| 2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: For any machine that computes a function by executing an explicit algorithm, there exists a hard-wired machine that computes the same function by not executing an explicit algorithm. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 23) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly vital for functionalists to understand that software can be hardwired. Presumably we should understand a hardwired alogirthm as 'implicit'? |
| 12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the Representational Theory of Mind is true, then concepts are constituents of beliefs, the units of semantic evaluation, a locus of causal interactions among mental representations, and formulas in Mentalese. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.2.1) | |
| A reaction: I like this aspect of the theory, but then I can't really think of a theory about how the mind works that doesn't make concepts central to it. |
| 3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Everybody is a functionalist, in that we all hold that mental states are individuated, at least in part, by reference to their causal powers. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.138) | |
| A reaction: I might individuate the Prime Minister by the carnation in his buttonhole. However, even a dualist must concede that we individuate mental faculties by their role within the mind. |
| 5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Fodor sees behaviour as manifestations of psychological capacities, which result from the subject being a set of interconnected 'homunculi', which in turn have subcomponents, all of it arranged in a hierarchy. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.9 | |
| A reaction: This may well miss out the most interesting parts of a mind (such as awareness, and personal identity), but it sounds basically right, especially when an evolutionary history is added to the system. Parts of my mind intrude into my trains of thought. |
| 6654 | A computer program is equivalent to the person AND the manual [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A computer executing its program is not equivalent to the English-speaker in the Chinese Room, but to the combination of the English-speaker and the operation manual. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: Searle replies that there would be no understanding even if the person learned the manual off by heart. However, if we ask 'Is there any understanding of the universe in Newton's book?' the answer has to be 'yes'. So the manual contains understanding. |
| 6629 | Functionalism commits us to bizarre possibilities, such as 'zombies' [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Functionalism seems to commit us to bizarre possibilities, such as 'zombies'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This goes with the tendency of functionalism to imply epiphenomenalism - that is, to make the intrinsic character of mental states irrelevant to thinking. I'd love to eavesdrop on two zombies in an art gallery. |
| 6623 | Functionalism can't distinguish our experiences in spectrum inversion [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It seems that functionalism can recognise no difference between my colour experiences and yours, in the case of spectrum inversion, suggesting that it fails to characterise colour experience adequately, by omitting its qualitative character. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a standard objection to functionalism, but then it is an objection to most other theories as well. Even dualism just offers a mystery as to why experiences have qualities. Observing a patch of red involves about three billion brain connections. |
| 6628 | Functionalism only discusses relational properties of mental states, not intrinsic properties [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Functionalism has nothing positive to say about the intrinsic properties of mental states, only something about their relational properties. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me highly significant. All references to function (e.g. in Aristotle) invite the question of what enables something to have that function. Maybe the core question of philosophy of mind is whether mental states are intrinsic or relational. |
| 2597 | Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I argue that (contrary to the doctrine called "anomalous monism") there is no good reason to doubt that there are intentional causal laws. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.151) | |
| A reaction: I certainly can't see a good argument, in Davidson or anywhere else, to demonstrate their impossibility. Give the complexity of the brain, they would be like the 'laws' for weather or geology. |
| 2489 | Why bother with neurons? You don't explain bird flight by examining feathers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Compare Churchland's strategy rooted in neurological modelling with "if it's flight you want to understand, what you need to look at is feathers". | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good, but may be a false analogy. You learn a lot about snake movement if you examine their scales. |
| 6622 | Non-reductive physicalism accepts token-token identity (not type-type) and asserts 'supervenience' of mind and brain [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The rejection of type-type identity and acceptance of token-token identity is referred to as 'non-reductive physicalism', and is usually link with the idea that mental state types are not identical with physical state types, but 'supervene' on them. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: A nice summary of the view (built on the arguments of Davidson) which has also become known as 'property dualism'. Personally I regard it as dangerous nonsense. If two things 'supervene' on one another, the first question to ask is: why? |
| 2985 | Are beliefs brains states, but picked out at a "higher level"? [Lyons on Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Fodor holds that beliefs are brain states or processes, but picked out at a 'higher' or 'special science' level. | |
| From: comment on Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by William Lyons - Approaches to Intentionality p.82 | |
| A reaction: I don't think you can argue with this. Levels of physical description exist (e.g. pure physics tells you nothing about the weather), and I think 'process' is the best word for the mind (Idea 4931). |
| 2995 | Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Mind/brain supervenience is the best idea anyone has had so far about how mental causation is possible. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 30) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that mind brain identity was a much better idea (see Idea 3440). Supervenience seems to prove that 'mental causation' occurs, but doesn't explain it. |
| 2464 | Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Type physicalism is, roughly, the doctrine that psychological kinds are identical to neurological kinds. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], App A n.1) | |
| A reaction: This gets my general support, leaving open the nature of 'kinds'. Presumably the identity is strict, as in 'Hesperus is identical to Phosphorus'. It seems unlikely that if you and I think the 'same' thought, that we have strictly identical brain states. |
| 2468 | Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: "Type" physicalism is supposed, by general consensus, to be stronger than "token" physicalism; stronger, that is, than the mere claim that all mental states are necessarily physically instantiated. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Such philosopher's terminology always seems cut-and-dried, until you ask exactly what is identical to what. The word 'type' is a very broad concept. Are trees the same type of thing as roses? A thought always requires the same 'type' of brain event? |
| 6634 | Physicalists must believe in narrow content (because thoughts are merely the brain states) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Physicalists will, it seems, be committed to the notion of narrow content, because if a person and their counterpart are neurological duplicates, they must exemplify the same mental state types, and thus possess beliefs with the same contents. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: Very important. How many philosophers currently believe in both wide content and reductive physicalism? However, if content is physical brain-plus-environment, we might reply that the whole package must be identical for same content. Cf Idea 7884! |
| 6630 | Eliminativism is incoherent if it eliminates reason and truth as well as propositional attitudes [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Eliminative materialism may be accused of incoherence, insofar as is threatens to eliminate reason and truth along with the propositional attitudes. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: Lowe does not enlarge on this intriguing suggestion. I don't see a threat to truth, if brain events represent the outer world, as they can do it more or less well. Logic is built on truth. Reason grows out of logic. Evidence seems okay… Hm. |
| 2490 | Modern connectionism is just Hume's theory of the 'association' of 'ideas' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Churchland is pushing a version of connectionism ….in which if you think of the elements as "ideas" and call the connections between them "associations", you've got a psychology that is no great advance on David Hume. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: See Fodor's book 'Humean Variations' on how Hume should be improved. This idea strikes me as important for understanding Hume, who is very reticent about what his real views are on the mind. |
| 12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Connectionism has no truck with mental representations; on the one hand, only the node labels in 'neural networks' have semantic content, and, on the other, the node labels play no role in mental processes, in standard formulations. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Connectionism must have some truth in it, yet mere connections can't do the full job. The difficulty is that nothing else seems to do the 'full job' either. Fodor cites productivity, systematicity, compositionality, logical form as the problems. |
| 2447 | Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: What Hume didn't see was that the causal and representational properties of mental symbols have somehow to be coordinated if the coherence of mental life is to be accounted for. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: Certainly the idea that it all somehow becomes magic at the point where the brain represents the world is incoherent - but it is a bit magical. How can the whole of my garden be in my brain? Weird. |
| 2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: With Associationism there proved to be no way to get a rational mental life to emerge from the sorts of causal relations among thoughts that the 'laws of association' recognised. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 18) | |
| A reaction: This might not be true if you add the concept of evolution, which has refined the associations to generate truth (which is vital for survival). |
| 3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Central state identity theorists had trouble providing for the nomological possibility of rational machines (and hence no space for a non-biological, e.g. computational, theory of intelligence). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
| A reaction: I surmise that a more externalist account of the physical mind might do the trick, by explaining intelligence in terms of an evolved relationship between brain and environment. |
| 2598 | Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If one of your reasons for doubting that believing-that-P is a physical property is that believing is multiply realizable, then you have the same reason for doubting that being an airfoil (or a mountain) counts as a physical property. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.153) | |
| A reaction: This merely points out that functionalism is not incompatible with physicalism, which must be right. |
| 3981 | Most psychological properties seem to be multiply realisable [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: These days most philosophers of mind suppose that most psychological properties are multiply realisable. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.298) | |
| A reaction: This is just speculation. The physical part may seem very different, but turn out to be identical in the ways that matter (like a knife made of two different metals). |
| 6648 | Some behaviourists believe thought is just suppressed speech [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Some behaviourists have held the view that thinking just is, in effect, suppressed speech. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: He cites J.B.Watson. This would imply that infants and animals can't think. Introspecting my own case, I don't believe it. When I am navigating through a town, for example, I directly relate to my mental map; I see little sign of anything verbal. |
| 2476 | The goal of thought is to understand the world, not instantly sort it into conceptual categories [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The question whether there are recognitional concepts is really the question what thought is for - for directing action, or for discerning truth. And Descartes was right on this: the goal of thought is to understand the world, not to sort it. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 4) |
| 12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The virtue of associative theories of thinking is that they don't require thoughts to have syntactic structure. But they can't be right, since association doesn't preserve either sense or reference (to say nothing of truth). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3 n28) | |
| A reaction: This is using the empiricist idea that knowledge is built from mechanical associations to give a complete account of what thinking is. Fodor resolutely opposes it. |
| 2992 | We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: We are on the verge of solving a great mystery about the mind: how is rationality mechanically possible? | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 20) | |
| A reaction: Optimistic, given that AI has struggled to implement natural languages, mainly because common sense knowledge seems too complex to encode. Can a machine determine logical forms of sentences? |
| 12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Connectionist architectures provide no counterpart to the relation between a complex concept and its constituents. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3 n29) | |
| A reaction: This is the compositionality of thought, upon which Fodor is so insistent. Not that a theory of how the mind is built up from the body is quite likely to give you a theory about what thinking is. I try to keep them separate, which may be wrong. |
| 2440 | Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Propositional attitudes are really three-place relations, between a creature, a proposition, and a mode of presentation (which are sentences of Mentalese). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.II) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about 'really'! Why do we need a creature? Isn't 'hoping it will rain' a propositional attitude which some creature may or may not have? Fodor wants it to be physical, but it's abstract? |
| 2988 | Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Commonsense belief/desire psychology explains vastly more of the facts about behaviour than any of the alternative theories available. It could hardly fail to; there are no alternative theories available. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.x) | |
| A reaction: The alternative view wouldn't expect a clear-cut theory, because it deals with the endless complexity of brain events. The charge is that Fodor and co oversimplify their account, in their desperation for a 'theory'. |
| 3975 | Folk psychology explains behaviour by reference to intentional states like belief and desire [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology is primarily intentional explanation; it's the idea that people's behaviour can be explained by reference to the contents of their beliefs and desires. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.292) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. To reject folk psychology (as reductivists tend to) is to reject the existence of significant intentional states which have causal properties |
| 2450 | Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Mentalism isn't gratuitous; you need it to explain rationality. Mental causation buys you behaviours that are unlike reflexes in at least three ways: they're autonomous, they're productive, and they're experimental. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: He makes his three ways sound all-or-nothing, which is (I believe) the single biggest danger when thinking about the mind. "Either you are conscious, or you are not..." |
| 6651 | People are wildly inaccurate in estimating probabilities about an observed event [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: In the 'cab problem' (what colour was the cab in the accident?) most people estimate an 80% probability of it being a blue cab, but Bayes' Theorem calculates the probability at 41%, suggesting people put too much faith in eyewitness testimony. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: For details of the 'cab problem', see Lowe p.200. My suspicion is that people get into a tangle when confronted with numbers in a theoretical situation, but are much better at it when faced with a real life problem, like 'who ate my chocolate?' |
| 6652 | 'Base rate neglect' makes people favour the evidence over its background [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: 'Base rate neglect' (attending to the witness or evidence, and ignoring background information) is responsible for doctors exaggerating the significance of positive results in diagnosis of relatively rare medical conditions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be one of the clearest cases where people's behaviour is irrational, though I suspect that people are much more rational about things if the case is simple and non-numerical. However, people are very credulous about wonderful events. |
| 2496 | Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Blind children are not, in general, linguistically impaired; not even in their talk about space. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: This is offered to demonstrate that spatial concepts are innate, even in the blind. But then we would expect anyone who has to move in space to develop spatial concepts from experience. |
| 2499 | Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The thinking involved in "figuring out" what to do is a quite different kind of mental process than the stimulus analysis that modules perform. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: My PA theory fits this perfectly. My inner assistant keeps providing information about needs, duties etc., but takes no part in my decisions. Psychology must include the Will. |
| 2497 | Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It is not plausible that the mind could be made only of modules; one does sometimes manage to balance one's checkbook, and there can't be an innate, specialized intelligence for doing that. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: I agree strongly with this. My own mind strikes me as being highly modular, but as long as I am aware of the output of the modules, I can pass judgement. The judger is more than a 'module'. |
| 2509 | Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Modules contain lots of specialized information about the problem domains that they compute in. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: At this point we must be cautious about modularity. I doubt whether 'information' is the right word. I think 'specialized procedures' might make more sense. |
| 22186 | Mental modules are specialised, automatic, and isolated [Fodor, by Okasha] |
| Full Idea: Fodor argues that mental modules have three important featuresL 1) they are domain-specific, 2) their operation is mandatory, 3) they are informationally encapsulated. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Modularity of Mind [1983]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 6 | |
| A reaction: Mandatory is interesting. When I hear an English sentence I can't decide not to process it. Modules cannot be too isolated or they couldn't participate in the team. Each one needs a comms manager. |
| 2491 | Modules have encapsulation, inaccessibility, private concepts, innateness [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The four essential properties of modules are: encapsulation (information doesn't flow, as in the persistence of illusions); inaccessibility (unreportable); domain specificity (they have private concepts); innateness (genetically preprogrammed). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: If they have no information flow, and are unreportable and private, this makes empirical testing of Fodor's hypothesis a little tricky. He must be on to something, though. |
| 2495 | Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The best candidates for the status of mental modules are language (the first one, put there by Chomsky), commonsense biology, commonsense physics, commonsense psychology, and aspects of visual form perception. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: My favourite higher level module is my Personal Assistant, who keeps nagging me to do sundry things, only some of which I agree to. It is an innate superego, but still a servant of the Self. |
| 2498 | Modules make the world manageable [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Modules function to present the world to thought under descriptions that are germane to the success of behaviour. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: "Descriptions" might be a bold word to use about something so obscure, but this pinpoints the evolutionary nature of modularity theory, to which I subscribe. |
| 2500 | Babies talk in consistent patterns [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: "Who Mummy love?" is recognizably baby talk; but "love Mummy who?" is not. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.14) | |
| A reaction: Not convincing. If she is embracing Daddy, and asking baby, she might get the answer "Daddy", after a bit of coaxing. Who knows what babies up the Amazon respond to? |
| 2507 | Rationality rises above modules [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Probably, modular computation doesn't explain how minds are rational; it's just a sort of precursor. You work through it to get a view of how horribly hard our rationality is to understand. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: The choice is between a Self which weighs and judges the inputs, or merely decisions that automatically result from the balance of inputs. The latter seems unlikely. Vetoes are essential. |
| 2480 | Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Thinking can't just be in sequences of English words since, notoriously, thought needs to be ambiguity-free in ways that mere word sequences are not. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a strong argument in favour of (at least) propositions. Thoughts are unambiguous, but their expression need not be. Sentences could be expanded to achieve clarity. |
| 2487 | Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I don't think it is true that all thought is in Mentalese. It is quite likely (e.g. in arithmetic algorithms) that Mentalese co-opts bits of natural language. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: Presumably language itself would have to be coded in mentalese. If there is some other way for thought to work, the whole mind could use it, and skip mentalese. |
| 2483 | Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Mentalese doesn't need Grice's theory of natural-language meaning, or indeed any theory of natural-language meaning whatsoever. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: Presumably what is represented by mentalese is a quite separate question from whether there exists a mentalese that does some sort of representing. Sounds plausible. |
| 12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: That there are ambiguities in English is the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.5) | |
| A reaction: I have always been impressed by this simple observation, which is my main reason for believing in propositions (as brain events). 'Propositions' may just be useful chunks of mentalese. |
| 8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin] |
| Full Idea: Fodor and Jackendorff argue that since the internal language of thought, or conceptual structure, has to be more or less the same for all people, of whatever language, it will surely be something like logical form. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: The discovery (by, e.g., Frege and Russell) that there is something called 'logical form', which we can track down and represent in precise and fairly unambiguous symbolism, may be one of the greatest of all human discoveries. Perhaps. |
| 2604 | We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I am denying that one can learn a language whose expressive power is greater than that of a language that one already knows. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (How there could be a private language [1975], p.389) | |
| A reaction: I presume someone who had a native language of limited vocabulary could learn a new language with a vast vocabulary. I can increase my expressive power with a specialist vocabulary (e.g. legal). |
| 7715 | Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: 'Mentalese' would be neither conventional nor a means of public communication so that even to call it a language is seriously misleading. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: It is, however, supposed to contain symbolic representations which are then used as tokens for computation, so it seems close to a language, if (for example) symbolic logic or mathematics were accepted as languages. But who understands it? |
| 3010 | Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: A defence of the language of thought has to be an argument that believing and desiring are typically structured states. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.136) | |
| A reaction: A structure is one thing, and a language is another. Both believings and desirings can be extremely vague, to the point where the owner is unsure what is believed or desired. They can, of course, be extremely precise. |
| 12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Mental representations can serve both as names for things in the world and as names of files in the memory. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3 App) | |
| A reaction: I am laughed at for liking this idea (given the present files of ideas before you), but I think this it is very powerful. Chicken before egg. I was drawn to databases precisely because they seemed to map how the mind worked. |
| 12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: We think in file names. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3 App) | |
| A reaction: This is Fodor's new view. He cites Treisman and Schmidt (1982) for raising it, and Pylyshyn (2003) for discussing it. I love it. It exactly fits my introspective view of how I think, and I think it would fit animals. It might not fit some other people! |
| 3135 | Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: The modest mentalism of the Computational/Representational Theory of Thought (CRTT), associated with Fodor, says mental processes are computational, defined over syntactically specified entities, and these entities represent the world (are also semantic). | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind Int.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that if you built a machine that did all these things, it would become conscious, which sounds unlikely. Do footprints 'represent' feet, or does representation need prior consciousness? |
| 12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The frame problem is, precisely: How does one know that none of one's beliefs about Jupiter are germane to the current question, without having to recall and search one's beliefs about Jupiter? | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.4.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably good chess-playing computers have made some progress with this problem. The only answer, as far as I can see, is that brains have a lot in common with relational databases. The mind is structured around a relevance-pattern. |
| 6655 | The 'Frame Problem' is how to program the appropriate application of general knowledge [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The 'Frame Problem' in artificial intelligence is how to write a program which not only embodies people's general knowledge, but specifies how that knowledge is to be applied appropriately, when circumstances can't be specified in advance. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: As Lowe observes, this is a problem, but not necessarily an impossibility. There should be a way to symbolically map the concepts of knowledge onto the concepts of perception, just as we must do. |
| 6657 | Computers can't be rational, because they lack motivation and curiosity [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Lack of motivation and curiosity are perhaps the most fundamental reason for denying that computers could be, in any literal sense, rational beings. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why programmers couldn't move those two priorities to the top of the list in the program. When you switch on a robot, its first words could be 'Teach me something!', or 'Let's do something interesting!' Every piece of software has priorities. |
| 6656 | The Turing test is too behaviourist, and too verbal in its methods [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The Turing test is open to the objection that it is inspired by behaviourist assumptions and focuses too narrowly on verbal evidence of intelligence. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This is part of the objection that the test exhibits human chauvinism, and robots and aliens are wasting their time trying to pass it. You need human behaviour, especially speech, to do well. Inarticulate people can exhibit high practical intelligence. |
| 2983 | Maybe narrow content is physical, broad content less so [Lyons on Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Fodor is concerned with producing a realist and physicalist account of 'narrow content' (i.e. wholly in-the-head content). | |
| From: comment on Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by William Lyons - Approaches to Intentionality p.54 | |
| A reaction: The emergence of 'wide' content has rather shaken Fodor's game plan. We can say "Oh dear, I thought I was referring to H2O", so there must be at least some narrow aspect to reference. |
| 6636 | The naturalistic views of how content is created are the causal theory and the teleological theory [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The leading naturalistic theories of what it is that confers a specific content upon a given attitudinal state are the causal theory, and the teleological theory, both of which contain serious difficulties. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: 'Causal' theories (Fodor) say the world directly causes content; 'teleological' theories (Millikan, Papineau) are based on the evolutionary purpose of content for the subject. I agree that neither seems adequate… |
| 12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there are mental representations is the idea that there are Ideas minus the idea that Ideas are images. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Good for you, Fodor. I've always thought that the vociferous contempt with which modern philosphers refer to the old notion of 'Ideas' was grossly exaggerated. At last someone puts a clear finger on what seems to be the difficulty. |
| 6633 | Twin Earth cases imply that even beliefs about kinds of stuff are indexical [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The implication of considerations of Twin Earth cases is that even beliefs about the properties of kinds of stuff are implicitly indexical, or context-dependent, in character. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: This is a significant connection, between debates about the nature of indexicals (such as 'I' and 'this') and externalism about content generally. Is there no distinction between objective reference and contextual reference? |
| 2437 | XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: There isn't any XYZ, and there couldn't be any, and so we don't have to worry about it. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.I) | |
| A reaction: Jadeite and Nephrite are real enough, which are virtually indistinguishable variants of jade. You just need Twin Jewellers instead of Twin Earths. We could build them, and employ twins to work there. |
| 12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the content of a concept is its reference, we can stop worrying about Twin Earth. If there are no senses, there is no question of whether my twin and I have the same WATER concept. Our WATER concepts aren't even coextensive. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a neat solution. So do 'tap water' and 'holy water' have the same content to a Christian and non-Christian, when they co-refer to the contents of the font? |
| 2441 | Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: We need the idea of broad content to make sense of the fact that thoughts have the truth-conditions that they do. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.II) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be (as Dummett points out) a potential circularity here, as you can hardly know the truth-conditions of something if you don't already know its content. |
| 3982 | How could the extrinsic properties of thoughts supervene on their intrinsic properties? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to see how the extrinsic properties of thoughts could supervene on their intrinsic properties. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.299) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem a big problem. Sometimes represented experiences establish the match; sometimes the match is not very good, or even wrong. |
| 2999 | Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: People who ask what the narrow content of the thought that water is wet is (for example) get what they deserve: phenomenalism, verificationism, 'procedural' semantics, or scepticism, according to temperament. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 51) | |
| A reaction: The question is whether content IS narrow. We could opt for broad content because then we wouldn't have to worry about scepticism, but I doubt whether we would then sleep well at night. |
| 3114 | Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the words of 'Swamp Man' (spontaneously created, with concepts) are about XYZ on Twin Earth, it is not because he's causally connected to the stuff, but because XYZ would cause his 'water' tokens (in the absence of H2O). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], App B) | |
| A reaction: The sight of the Eiffel tower causes my 'France' tokens, so is my word "France" about the Eiffel Tower? What would cause my 'nothing' tokens? |
| 2486 | Content can't be causal role, because causal role is decided by content [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Functional role semantics wants to analyze the content of a belief in terms of its inferential (causal) relations; but that seems the wrong way round. The content of a belief determines its causal role. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: This is one of my favourite ideas, which keeps coming to mind when considering functional accounts of mental life. The buck of explanation must, however, stop somewhere. |
| 3012 | Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If thoughts have their causal roles in virtue of their contents, then two thoughts with identical contents ought to be identical in their causal roles. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.140) | |
| A reaction: A pencil would presumably have the same causal role if it wrote a love poem or hate mail. But a pencil is also good for scratching your back. 'Causal role' can be a rather vacuous idea. |
| 2452 | Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If you know the content of a thought, you know quite a lot about what would cause you to have it. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure where this fits into the great jigsaw of the mind, but it strikes me as an acute and important observation. The truth of a thought is not essential to make you have it. Ask Othello. |
| 2432 | Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I assume intentional content reduces (in some way) to information. …The content of a thought depends on its external relations; on the way that the thought is related to the world, not the way that it is related to other thoughts. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Does this make Fodor a 'weak' functionalist? The 'strong' version would say a thought is merely a location in a flow diagram, but Fodor's 'mentalism' includes a further 'content' in each diagram box. |
| 16535 | A concept is a way of thinking of things or kinds, whether or not they exist [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The nearest I can get to a quick definition is to say that a concept is a way of thinking of some thing or kind of things, whether or not a really existent thing or kind of things. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 2) | |
| A reaction: The focus on 'things' seems rather narrow. Are relations things? He makes concepts sound adverbial, so that there is thinking going on, and then we add 'ways' of doing it. Thinking depends on concepts, not concepts on thinking. |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I don't know how concepts are acquired. Nor do you. Nor does anybody else. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.4) | |
| A reaction: This comes in the context of quietly modifying his earlier claim that concepts weren't acquired, because they were largely innate. Presumably we are allowed to have theories of concept acquisition? I quite like abstractionism. |
| 2492 | Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Experience can't explain itself; eventually, some of the concepts that explaining experience requires have to come from outside it. Eventually, some of them have to be built in. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.12) |
| 11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence] |
| Full Idea: Fodor argues that virtually all lexical concepts are innate, because most models of learning treat concept-learning as hypothesis testing, but that invariably employs the very concept to be learned. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by E Margolis/S Laurence - Concepts 3.3 | |
| A reaction: The obvious response is to reject the theory which gave rise to this difficulty. I take concept formation to be a fairly mechanical and barely conscious response to environment, not a process of fully rational and conscious hypothesising. |
| 6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Fodor has recently changed his mind about the innateness of concepts, which he formerly championed. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.7 n25 | |
| A reaction: There is some sensible middle road to be charted here. We presumably do not have an innate idea of a screwdriver, but there are plenty of basic concepts in logic and perception that are plausibly thought of as innate. |
| 12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: What's learned are stereotypes. What's innate is the disposition to grasp such and such a concept (to lock to such a property) in consequence of having learned such and such a stereotype. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the late Fodor much ameliorated view, after a lot of scoffing about the idea of the tin-opener being innate in all of us. There may be a suspicion of circularity here, if we ask what mental abilities are needed to form a stereotype. |
| 12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in any mental life could be the concept CAT unless it is satisfied by cats. If you haven't got a concept that applies to cats, that entails that you haven't got the CAT concept. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Of course, having a concept that applies to cats doesn't entail that you have the CAT concept. Quine's 'gavagai', for example. I think Fodor is right in this idea. |
| 12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Pragmatism about concepts really is dead, and the only alternative about concept possession is Cartesianism. That is, it's the thesis that having concept C is being able to think about Cs (as such). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.2.2) | |
| A reaction: I like this. It is very hard to pick out from Fodor the bits where he is clearly right, but this seems to be one of them. I don't like the pragmatic or Wittgensteinian line that having concepts is all about abilities and uses (like sorting or inferring). |
| 12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: We think in file names, and file names are Janus-faced: one face turned towards thinking and the other face turned towards what is thought about. I do think that is rather satisfactory. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3 App) | |
| A reaction: So do I. I do hope the philosophical community take up this idea (which they probably won't, simply because Fodor is in the late stages of his career!). |
| 12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Cartesians think that concept individuation is prior, in order of analysis, to concept possession. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.12) | |
| A reaction: Peacocke is someone who seems to put possession first, to the point where individuation is thereby achieved. The background influence there is Wittgenstein. I think I am more with Fodor, that concepts are entities, which need to be understood. |
| 2438 | In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Semantics, according to the informational view, is mostly about counterfactuals; what counts for the identity of my concepts is not what I do distinguish but what I could distinguish if I cared to (even using instruments and experts). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.I) | |
| A reaction: We all differ in our discriminations (and awareness of expertise), so our concepts would differ, which is bad news for communication (see Idea 223). The view has some plausibility, though. |
| 12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I argue for a very strong version of psychological atomism; one according to which what concepts you have is conceptually and metaphysically independent of what epistemic capacities you have. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a frontal assault on the tradition of Frege, Dummett and Peacocke. I immediately find Fodor's approach more congenial, because he wants to say what a concept IS, rather than just place it within some larger scheme of things. |
| 2471 | Are concepts best seen as capacities? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Virtually all modern theorists about philosophy, mind or language tend to agree that concepts are capacities, in particular concepts are epistemic capacities. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: This view seems to describe concepts in functional terms, which generates my perennial question: what is it about concepts that enables them to fulfil that particular role? |
| 2472 | For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It's a paradigmatically Pragmatist idea that having a concept consists in being able to do something. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: If you defined a bicycle simply by what you could do with it, you wouldn't explain much. I wonder if pragmatism and functionalism come from the same intellectual stable? |
| 12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers in droves have held that Frege cases are convincing arguments that concepts have not just referents but also senses. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.2) | |
| A reaction: [Frege cases are puzzles where simple reference seems to lead to confusion] I take the Fregean approach to concepts (of Dummett, Peacocke) to attempt to give an account of the sense, once the reference is decided. Idea 12629 gives Fodor's view. |
| 12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: How are we to understand the connection between the identity of a concept and its causal powers if concepts are (or have) senses? Answer: I haven't a clue. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key to Fodor's attack on Peacocke and other Fregeans - that while they pay lip-service to the project of naturalising thought, they are actually committing us to some sort of neo-platonism, by losing the causal links. See Idea 12636. |
| 12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Supposing the mind to be conversant with senses can, maybe, provide for a theory of the intentionality of mental states; but it seems to shed no light at all on the nature of mental processes (i.e. of mental state transitions). | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3) | |
| A reaction: I would track this back to Frege's hostility to 'psychologism'. That is, Fregeans don't care about Fodor's problem, because all their accounts (of mathematics, of logic, and of concepts) treat the subject-matter as self-contained sui generis. |
| 12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: You can think 'brown dog' without thinking 'cat', but you can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog'. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.4.3) | |
| A reaction: Fodor is talking about concepts in thought, not about words. The claim is that such concepts have to be compositional, and it is hard to disagree. |
| 12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The definition theory says that concepts are complex structures which entail their constituents. By saying this, it guarantees both the connection between content and necessity, and the connection between concept individuation and concept possession. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: He cites Pinker as a spokesman for the definitional view. This is the view Fodor attacks, in favour of his atomistic account. He adds in a note that his view also offered to reduce conceptual truth to logical truth. |
| 12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Many concepts have no prototypes; and there are many complex concepts whose prototypes aren't related to the prototypes of their constituents in the way compositional explanation of productivity and systematicity requires. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: His favourite example of the latter is 'pet fish', where the prototype of 'pet' is hardly ever a fish, and the prototype of 'fish' is usually much bigger than goldfish. Fodor is arguing that concepts are atomic. |
| 12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: We needn't say that learning a stereotype is just a by-product of acquiring the concept; it could rather be a stage in concept acquisition. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.4) | |
| A reaction: He rejects stereotypes because they don't give concepts the necessary compositionality in thought. But this idea would mean that children were incapable of compositionality until they had transcended the primitive stereotype stage. |
| 12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The same stereotype can give difference concepts; chickens are paradigmatic instances both of FOOD and of BARNYARD FOWL. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.4) | |
| A reaction: And I'm guessing that lots of concepts could have two equally plausible stereotypes, even within a single mind. Stereotypes are interesting, but they don't seem to be the key to our understanding of concepts. |
| 12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the theory theory has a distinctive and coherent answer to the 'What's a concept?' question on offer, it's a well-kept secret. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Not an argument, but worth recording as an attitude. I certainly agree that accounts which offer some sort of answer to 'What is a concept?' have an immediate head's start on those which don't. |
| 12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Pure referentialism is the kind of semantics RTM requires (reference is the only primitive mind-world semantic property). ...So the content of a concept is its reference. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to say that the meaning of a concept is (typically) a physical object, which seems to be the 'Fido'-Fido view of meaning. It seems to me to be a category mistake to say that a meaning can be a cat. |
| 12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Atomism must be right about the individuation of concepts because compositionality demands it. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch1) | |
| A reaction: I suppose this seems right, though Fodor's own example of 'pet fish' is interesting. What is supposed to happen when you take a concept like 'pet' and put it with 'fish', given that both components shift their atomic (?) meaning in the process? |
| 8299 | Abstractions are non-spatial, or dependent, or derived from concepts [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: There are three conceptions of abstractness: 1) non-spatial entities, the opposite of 'concrete' (e.g. numbers and universals); 2) an entity logically incapable of a separate existence (e.g. an apple's colour); 3) Fregean abstractions from concepts. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: [Lowe p.218 explains the third one] Lowe rejects the third one, and it is a moot point whether the second one could actually be classed as an entity (do they have identity-conditions?), so the big issue is the first one. |
| 12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: In the idea of learning concepts by 'abstraction', experiences of the instances provide evidence about which of the shared properties of things in a concept's extension are 'criterial' for being in the concept's extension. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.2 n6) | |
| A reaction: Fodor is fairly sceptical of this approach, and his doubts are seen in the scare-quotes around 'criterial'. He is defending the idea that only a certain degree of innateness in the concepts can get such a procedure off the ground. |
| 4238 | The centre of mass of the solar system is a non-causal abstract object, despite having a location [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The centre of mass of the solar system seems to lack causal powers, and so is an abstract object, even though it has a location and movement. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.368) | |
| A reaction: Nice example, with rich ramifications. Abstraction is deeply tied into our understanding of the physical world, and our concept of identity. |
| 4237 | Concrete and abstract objects are distinct because the former have causal powers and relations [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Concrete objects possess causal powers and relations, but abstract objects are incapable of having causal powers or relations. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.368) | |
| A reaction: Is this an observation or a definition? One might claim that an abstraction (such as a political ideal) can acquire causal power through a conscious mnd. |
| 8306 | You can think of a direction without a line, but a direction existing with no lines is inconceivable [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Although one can separate 'in thought' a direction from any line of which it is the direction, one cannot conceive of a direction existing in the absence of any line possessing that direction. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. If I ask you to imagine a line going in a certain direction, don't you need the direction before you can think of the line? 'That line is going in the wrong direction'. Maybe abstract ideas only exist 'in thought'. Lowe is a realist here. |
| 2439 | Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It is the essence of semantic externalism that there is nothing that you have to believe, there are no inferences that you have to accept, to have the concept 'elm'. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §2.I) | |
| A reaction: [REMINDER: broad content is filed in 18.C.7, under 'Thought' rather than under language. That is because I am a philospher of thought, rather than of language. |
| 2457 | If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It is the causal connection between the state of the world and the contents of beliefs that the reduction of meaning to information is designed to insure. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear why characterising the contents of a belief in terms of its information has to amount to a 'reduction'. A cup of tea isn't reduced to tea. Connections imply duality. |
| 7722 | If meaning is mental pictures, explain "the cat (or dog!) is NOT on the mat" [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If meaning is a private mental picture, what does 'the cat is NOT on the mat' mean, and how does it differ from 'the dog is not on the mat?'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Not insurmountable. We picture an empty mat, combined with a cat (or whatever) located somewhere else. A mental 'picture' of something shouldn't be contrued as a single image in a neat black frame. |
| 2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: According to Gricean theories of meaning, the meaning of a sentence is inherited from the propositional attitudes that the sentence is conventionally used to express. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 50) | |
| A reaction: Since the propositional attitudes contain propositions, this seems like a very plausible idea. If an indexical like 'I' is involved, the meaning of the sentence is not the same as its 'conventional' use. |
| 2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Nobody now thinks that the reduction of the meaning of English sentences to facts about the communicative intentions of English speakers - or to any facts about mental states - is likely to go through. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: Most attempts at 'reduction' of meaning seem to go rather badly. I assume it would be very difficult to characterise 'intentions' without implicit reference to meaning. |
| 3006 | Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The mechanisms that deliver falsehoods are somehow parasitic on the ones that deliver truths. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.107) | |
| A reaction: In the case of a sentence and its negation it is not clear which one is 'parasitic', because that can usually be reversed by paraphrasing. Historically, I very much hope that truth-speaking came first. |
| 2451 | To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If you know the content of a thought, you thereby know what would make the thought true. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: The truthmaker might by physically impossible, and careful thought might show it to be contradictory - but that wouldn't destroy the meaning. |
| 3007 | Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Verification procedures connect terms with their denotations in too many ways. Different routes to 'star' do not determine different semantic values for 'star'. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.125) | |
| A reaction: This fairly conclusively shows that meaning is not 'the method of verification' - but that wasn't a difficult target to hit. |
| 3004 | The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 79) | |
| A reaction: Among other things. It can also arrive from a desire to remember something. A sentence can also acquire meaning compositionally (by assembling) with no use or aim. |
| 3000 | Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Meaning holism really is a crazy doctrine. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 60) | |
| A reaction: Yes. What is not crazy is a contextualist account of utterances, and a recognition of the contextual and relational ingredient in the meanings of most of our sentences. |
| 2433 | For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If what you are thinking depends on all of what you believe, then nobody ever thinks the same thing twice. …That is why so many semantic holists (Quine, Putnam, Rorty, Churchland, probably Wittgenstein) end up being semantic eliminativists. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.2b) | |
| A reaction: If linguistic holism is nonsense, this is easily settled. What I say about breakfast is not changed by reading some Gibbon yesterday. |
| 2477 | If to understand "fish" you must know facts about them, where does that end? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If learning that fish typically live in streams is part of learning "fish", typical utterances of "pet fish" (living in bowls) are counterexamples. This argument iterates (e.g "big pet fish"). So learning where they live can't be part of learning "fish". | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: Using 'typical' twice is rather misleading here. Town folk can learn 'fish' as typically living in bowls. There is no one way to learn a word meaning. |
| 3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It's an embarrassment for attempts to construct content from functional role that quite different sorts of mental states can nevertheless share their contents. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 70) | |
| A reaction: That is, presumably, one content having two different roles. Two contents with the same role is 'multiple realisability'. Pain can tell me I'm damaged, or reveal that my damaged nerves are healing. Problem? |
| 12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: 'Inferential-role semantics' claims that the meaning of a word (/the content of a concept) is determined by its role in inference. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.2.1.2 n14) | |
| A reaction: Fodor is deeply opposed to this view. At first blush it sounds wrong to me, since there seems to be plenty of thought that can go on before inference takes place. Daydreamy speculation, for example. |
| 2996 | Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The identity of the content of mental states does not ensure the identity of their extensions. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 45) | |
| A reaction: Obviously if I am thinking each day about 'my sheep', that won't change if I am unaware that one of them died this morning. …Because I didn’t have the precise number of sheep in mind. |
| 7279 | If words can't be defined, they may just be the chirruping of chicks [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Our words are not just hot air. Words work because they are something, but the problem is that, if we cannot define a word's meaning, it doesn't really say anything. Can we make a case for it being anything different from the chirruping of chicks? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This obviously points us towards Quine's challenge to analyticity, and hence the value of definitions (Ideas 1622 and 1624). Even for Chuang Tzu, it seems naïve to think that you cannot use a word well if you cannot define it. |
| 12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The representation of 'morning star' must be different from 'evening star' because their tokens differ in their causal powers. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.3) | |
| A reaction: This is Fodor trying to avoid the standard Fregean move of proposing that there are 'senses' as well as references. See Idea 12629. If these two terms have the same extension, they are the same concept? They 'seem' to have two referents. |
| 12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I assume that there are two kinds of reference: reference to individuals and to properties. This means, from the syntactic point of view, that the vehicles of reference are exhaustively singular terms and predicates. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The immediate possibility that comes to mind is plural quantification. See George Boolos, who confidently says that he can refer to 'some Cheerios' in his breakfast bowl, and communicate very well. He then looks to formalise such talk. |
| 16550 | Direct reference doesn't seem to require that thinkers know what it is they are thinking about [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It may be objected that currently prevailing causal or 'direct' theories of reference precisely deny that a thinker must know what it is the he or she is thinking about in order to be able to think about it. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 7) | |
| A reaction: Lowe says that at least sometimes we have to know that we are thinking about, so this account of reference can't be universally true. My solution is to pull identity and essence apart. You only need identity, not essence, for reference. |
| 2436 | It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The standard view is that Frege cases [knowing Jocasta but not mother] show that reference doesn't determine sense, and Twin cases [knowing water but not H2O] show that sense doesn't determine reference. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: How about 'references don't contain much information', and 'descriptions may not fix what they are referring to'? Simple really. |
| 2434 | Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Broad semantic theories generally hold that the basic semantic properties of thoughts are truth and denotation. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §1.2b) | |
| A reaction: I think truth and denotation are the basic semantic properties, but I am dubious about whole-hearted broad semantic theories, so I seem to have gone horribly wrong somewhere. |
| 12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: English has no semantics. Learning English isn't learning a theory about what its sentences mean, it's learning how to associate its sentences with the corresponding thoughts. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds remarkably close to John Locke's account of language (which I always thought was seriously underrated). Presumably we can then say that the 'thought' (or Locke's 'idea') is the meaning, which is old-fashioned real meanings. |
| 12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: All you need for inferring from John's utterance to the world is the sort of thing that a semantics (i.e. referential semantics) provides. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.5) | |
| A reaction: Fodor is very good at saying nice simple things like that. But it is not enough to infer what objects are being discussed. All the hard cases must be covered (denials of existence, reference to non-existence, intentional contexts, modal claims). |
| 12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Semantics is about constitutive relations between representations and the world. There is, as a matter of principle, no such thing as a psychological theory of meaning. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.3.5) | |
| A reaction: The second sentence is in capital letters, but I am still not convinced. The classic difficulty seems to be that you have to use language to pick out the things in the world that are being referred to. Of course, at some point you just see the objects. |
| 2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: You need an externalist semantics to explain why the contents of beliefs should have anything to do with how the world is. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: Since externalist semantics only emerged in the 1970s, that implies that no previous theory had any notion that language had some connection to how the world is. Eh? |
| 23404 | Words are for meaning, and once you have that you can forget the words [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Words are for meaning: when you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], 26), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 9.VI | |
| A reaction: 'What exactly did this person say?' 'Don't know, but I've given you the accurate gist'. This is such an obvious phenomenon that I amazed by modern philosophers who deny propositions, or deny meaning entirely. |
| 6632 | The same proposition provides contents for the that-clause of an utterance and a belief [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: We use the same that-clause ('that snow is white') to specify the contents of both a person's utterances and of their beliefs, because it is the same proposition. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: Certainly to say 'he believes that we should declare war' seems to refer to something non-linguistic, but it doesn't demonstrate that anything concrete or real is being referred to. It may be an abstract account of dispositions and desires. |
| 6631 | If propositions are abstract entities, how can minds depend on their causal powers? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If propositions are abstract entities, more like the objects of mathematics, it seems mysterious that states of mind should depend for their causal powers upon the propositions which allegedly constitute their 'contents'. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], 70) | |
| A reaction: Compare standard objections to Platonic Forms (e.g. Idea 3353). You can't believe in abstract propositions, but be a reductive physicalist about the mind. So propositions are dynamic brain structures. Easy. |
| 2473 | Analysis is impossible without the analytic/synthetic distinction [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If there is no analytic/synthetic distinction then there are no analyses. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3) | |
| A reaction: There are no precise analyses. I see no reason why a holistic view of language prohibits the careful elucidation of key concepts in the system. It's just a bit fluid. |
| 2484 | The theory of the content of thought as 'Mentalese' explains why the Private Language Argument doesn't work [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the Mentalese story about the content of thought is true, then there couldn't be a Private Language Argument. Good. That explains why there isn't one. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: Presumably Mentalese implies that all language is, in the first instance, intrinsically private. Dogs, for example, need Mentalese, since they self-evidently think. |
| 6659 | The three main theories of action involve the will, or belief-plus-desire, or an agent [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The two alternatives to volitionism in explaining action are (firstly) certain complexes of belief and desire, and (secondly) causation by an agent. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: A helpful framework. A key test case seems to that of trying to perform an action and failing (e.g. through paralysis), and this goes against the whole 'agent' being the most basic concept. One also needs room for reasons, and this supports volitionism. |
| 6661 | Libet gives empirical support for the will, as a kind of 'executive' mental operation [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet's experiments (on conscious and non-conscious choice) seem to provide empirical support for the concept of 'volition', conceived as a special kind of 'executive' mental operation. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Despite the strictures of Hobbes (Idea 2362) and Williams (Idea 2171), the will strikes me as a genuine item, clearly observable by introspection, and offering the best explanation of human behaviour. I take it to be part of the brain's frontal lobes. |
| 12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: You can't think a plan of action unless you can think how the world would be if the action were to succeed; and thinking the world will be such and such if all goes well is thinking the kind of thing that can be true or false. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This is part of Fodor's attack on the pragmatic view of concepts (that they should be fully understood in terms of action, rather than of thought). I take Fodor to be blatantly correct. This is counterfactual thinking. |
| 6662 | We feel belief and desire as reasons for choice, not causes of choice [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: When we choose how to act in the light of our beliefs and desires, we do not feel our choices to be caused by them, but we conceive of them as giving us reasons to choose. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: I agree, though this 'feeling' could be a delusion, and we certainly don't need to start talking about a 'free' will. The best account of action seems to be that the will operates on the raw material of beliefs and desires. The will is our 'decision box'. |
| 6663 | People's actions are explained either by their motives, or their reasons, or the causes [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: When we ask why people act in the ways that they do, we are sometimes enquiring into people's motives, at other times we want to uncover their reasons, and at others we want to know the causes of their actions. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2000], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: Helpful distinctions. Any one of these explanations might be collapsed into the others. Kantians, utilitarians and contractarians can study reasons, nihilists can study causes, and virtue theorists I take to be concerned with motives. |
| 7283 | Great courage is not violent [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Great courage is not violent. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A very nice remark. This, I think, is what the Greeks were struggling to say about courage, but they never quite pinned it down as Chuang Tzu does. |
| 4210 | If the concept of a cause says it precedes its effect, that rules out backward causation by definition [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: You can't include in your concept of causation a clause stipulating that the cause occurred earlier than the effect, because that would rule out backward causation by definition. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.176) | |
| A reaction: It may, though, be the case that backward causes can't occur, and time is essential to causes. The problem is our inability to know this for sure. |
| 4215 | It seems proper to say that only substances (rather than events) have causal powers [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It seems proper to say that events of themselves possess no causal powers; only persisting objects (individual substances) possess causal powers. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.211) | |
| A reaction: This requires events to be reduced to substances, which invites Aristotle's question of where the movement comes from. In physcis, 'energy' is the key concept. |
| 4209 | The theories of fact causation and event causation are both worth serious consideration [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The theories of fact causation and event causation are both worth serious consideration. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.173) | |
| A reaction: This is slippery ground because both 'facts' and 'events' have uncertain ontological status, and seem partly conventional rather than natural. Events might be natural surges or transformations of energy? |
| 8317 | To cite facts as the elements in causation is to confuse states of affairs with states of objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers who have advocated facts as being causal relata have confused them with states, such as a stone's being heavy; they are guilty of confusing states of affairs with states of objects. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 11.3) | |
| A reaction: A state of an object can be individuated rather more precisely than a fact or state of affairs. There are, of course, vast numbers of states of objects, but only a few states of affairs, involved in (say) the fall of the Berlin Wall. |
| 4211 | Causal overdetermination is either actual overdetermination, or pre-emption, or the fail-safe case [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: In causation there is 'overdetermination' (c and d occurred, and were both sufficient for e), 'pre-emption' (c and d occurred, and d would have stepped in if c hadn't), or 'fail-safe' (if c hadn't occurred, d would have occurred and done it). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.179) | |
| A reaction: Two safety nets together, two safety nets spaced apart, or a second net which pops in if the first breaks. Nice distinctions. |
| 4213 | Causation may be instances of laws (seen either as constant conjunctions, or as necessities) [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Causation relations between events may an instance of a causal law, with laws either interpreted as constant conjunctions (Hume), or as necessitation among universals (Armstrong). | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.190) | |
| A reaction: Hume's version is a thin idea of a law, but we can dream about the metaphysical status of laws, even if we don't know much about them. Lowe says a cause without a law is perfectly intelligible. |
| 4212 | Hume showed that causation could at most be natural necessity, never metaphysical necessity [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: One thing Hume has taught us is that the necessity which causation involves is at most 'natural' or 'physical' necessity, not metaphysical necessity. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.182) | |
| A reaction: Given Hume's epistemological scepticism, I don't think he would claim to have shown such a thing. See G.Strawson's book. Metaphysical necessity of causation is possible, but unknowable. |
| 14581 | The normative view says laws show the natural behaviour of natural kind members [Lowe, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: For Lowe law statements are in a sense about what 'ought' to be the case. The 'ought' is not an explicitly moral or anthropomorphic one but instead tells us what is the natural behaviour of kind members. | |
| From: report of E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002]) by S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum - Getting Causes from Powers 8.6 | |
| A reaction: This is the 'normative' view of laws (as opposed to the intentional, dispositional, or regularity accounts). They cite Lowe 1989 Ch.8. The obvious immediate problem is things which evolved for one purpose and end up being used for another. |
| 16547 | H2O isn't necessary, because different laws of nature might affect how O and H combine [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It is not metaphysically necessary that water is composed of H2O molecules, because the natural laws governing the chemical behaviour of hydrogen and oxygen atoms could have been significantly different, so they might not have composed that substance. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: I fear this may be incoherent, as science. See Bird on why salt must dissolve in water. There can't (I suspect) be a law which keeps O and H the same, and yet makes them combine differently. |
| 3977 | Laws are true generalisations which support counterfactuals and are confirmed by instances [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Laws are true generalisations that support counterfactuals and are confirmed by their instances. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.293) | |
| A reaction: This seems correct, but it doesn't disentangle laws as mental states from laws as features of nature |
| 4208 | 'If he wasn't born he wouldn't have died' doesn't mean birth causes death, so causation isn't counterfactual [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Counterfactual analyses of event causation don't seem to work, because 'if Napoleon hadn't been born he wouldn't have died' is true, but doesn't mean his birth caused his death. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.161) | |
| A reaction: Nice counterexample, which looks pretty conclusive. Birth makes death possible; it creates the necessary conditions within which it can be caused. |
| 4224 | If motion is change of distance between objects, it involves no intrinsic change in the objects [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If motion just is change of distance between two objects, it does not involve any kind of intrinsic change in the objects in question. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.242) | |
| A reaction: It sound respectably relativistic, but I doubt the definition. x is moving relative to y, then y attains x's velocity, so x ceases to move? Maybe. |
| 4227 | Surfaces, lines and points are not, strictly speaking, parts of space, but 'limits', which are abstract [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Surfaces, lines and points are not, strictly speaking, parts of space at all, but just 'limits' of certain kinds, and as such 'abstract' entities. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.254) | |
| A reaction: This is fairly crucial when dealing with Zeno's paradoxes. How many points in a line? How long to get through a point? |
| 8269 | Points are limits of parts of space, so parts of space cannot be aggregates of them [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Points are limits of parts of space, in which case parts of space cannot be aggregates of them. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 3.9) | |
| A reaction: To try to build space out of points (how many per cc?) is fairly obviously asking for trouble, but Lowe articulates nicely why it is a non-starter. |
| 4228 | If space is entirely relational, what makes a boundary, or a place unoccupied by physical objects? [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If space does not exist at all, but is only relations between objects, what could one possibly mean by saying that there is a place which is unoccupied by any material object? And what determines whether space is bounded? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.264) | |
| A reaction: Correct. People who assert that space is only relational have been misled by what we can know about space, not what it is. |
| 7280 | As all life is one, what need is there for words? [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: As all life is one, what need is there for words? | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: In a sense this is nonsense, but it has an appeal. I presume that God would not need words, any more than he would need arithmetic. Life is obviously a complex one, with parts which can be discussed. |
| 7288 | Go with the flow, and be one with the void of Heaven [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Don't struggle, go with the flow, and you will find yourself at one with the vastness of the void of Heaven. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Ugh. I've got all eternity to do that. The underlying assumption of Taoism seems to be that it is better not to have been born, and if you are thus unfortunate, you should try to pretend that it never happened. Much too negative for my taste. |
| 7287 | Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao [Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu)] |
| Full Idea: Fish forget about each other in the pond and forget each other in the Tao. | |
| From: Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) (The Book of Chuang Tzu [c.329 BCE], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Strikingly different from Christianity. No wonder Europeans used to describe orientals as 'enigmatic'; the faces of Taoists presumably express indifference. Not for me, I'm afraid. I identify with my fellow humans, because of our shared predicaments. |