14 ideas
| 16051 | Life has a new supervenient relation, which alters its underlying physical events [Morgan,L] |
| Full Idea: When some new kind of relatedness is supervenient (say at the level of life), the way in which the physical events which are involved run their course is different in virtue of its presence. | |
| From: Lloyd Morgan (Emergent Evolution [1923], pp.15-16), quoted by Terence Horgan - From Supervenience to Superdupervenience 1 | |
| A reaction: This is a clear assertion of 'downward causation' at the first introduction of 'supervenience', supporting 'emergentism' about life and mind. That is, the newly-emerged feature has new causal powers that affect the physical system from outside. Wrong! |
| 3364 | All mental phenomena contain an object [Brentano] |
| Full Idea: Every mental phenomenon contains something as object within itself. | |
| From: Franz Brentano (Psychology from an empirical standpoint [1874], p. 88), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.21 | |
| A reaction: This gives rise to the slogan that 'intentionality is the mark of the mental', which notoriously seems to miss out the phenomenal aspect of mental life. We note now, though, that even emotions have objects. |
| 3225 | Mental unity suggests that qualia and intentionality must connect [Brentano, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: Brentano's thesis is that all mental phenomena are intentional i.e. representational. Support for this view is that assimilating phenomenal experience to attitudes we explain the essential unity of the mind. | |
| From: report of Franz Brentano (Psychology from an empirical standpoint [1874]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 11.5 | |
| A reaction: Unifying intentionality and qualia in a single theory looks like a good move, but which one has priority? Evolutionary theory says priority goes to whatever produces behaviour. My intuition is that qualia are more basic - in tiny insects, say. |
| 7439 | The qualities involved in sensations are entirely intentional [Anscombe, by Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Anscombe argued that the qualities involved in sensations are one and all intentional only (and I think this holds even for the bodily sensations). | |
| From: report of G.E.M. Anscombe (The Intentionality of Sensation [1965]) by David M. Armstrong - Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' p.xxii | |
| A reaction: Compare Harry Gildersleve's exactly opposite proposal in Idea 7272. I think I am coming round to the Anscombe view, which builds the more mysterious up from the less mysterious. Gildersleve must explain how atomic qualia arise. |
| 8353 | Freedom involves acting according to an idea [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Freedom at least involves the power of acting according to an idea. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §2) | |
| A reaction: Since 'you' presumably have to sit above the idea and pass a judgement on it, then the same principle should apply to acting on a desire, which presumably 'you' could reject because it just wasn't attractive enough. |
| 8352 | To believe in determinism, one must believe in a system which determines events [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: 'The ball's path is determined' must mean 'there is only one possible path for the ball (assuming no air currents)', but what ground could one have for believing this, if one does not believe in some system for which it is a consequence? | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §2) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, but it doesn't follow that one has to know the full details of the system. The system might just be the best explanation, or even a matter of vague faith. It might, though, be just that you can't imagine any other outcome. |
| 20041 | Intentional actions are those which are explained by giving the reason for so acting [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Intentional actions are those to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Intention [1957], p.9), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 2 'Two kinds' | |
| A reaction: This works better for grand large-scale actions than for small ones, like taking the knife out of the drawer before the fork. Kahnemann nowadays tells us that the reasons we articulate might not be the ones that are operative. |
| 8070 | It would be better to point to failings of character, than to moral wrongness of actions [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: It would be a great improvement if, instead of 'morally wrong', one always named a genus such as 'untruthful', 'unchaste', or 'unjust'. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.183) | |
| A reaction: People are indeed much more struck by the suggestion that they have a weakness of character, rather than that they have just done something wrong. This is Anscombe's first great appeal for a return to virtue as the basis of ethics. |
| 8065 | 'Ought' and 'right' are survivals from earlier ethics, and should be jettisoned [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: The moral sense of 'ought' and of what is right should be jettisoned, if possible, because they are survivals from an earlier conception of ethics, and are only harmful without it. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.175) | |
| A reaction: This is part of a revolutionary proposal to return to virtue theory, and has had a great influence (e.g. on me). Richard Taylor gives a good account of how duty lost its social and religious underpinnings. Our duties now seem to be purely contractual. |
| 8069 | Between Aristotle and us, a Judaeo-Christian legal conception of ethics was developed [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Between Aristotle and us came Christianity, with its law conception of ethics, and Christianity derived its ethical notions from the Torah. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.179) | |
| A reaction: While I am a fan of the primacy of the virtues in ethical thinking, I am doubtful about the complete elimination of laws (e.g. by Particularists). The law teaches us the virtues, and reminds us of them (like speed-limit signs). |
| 8351 | With diseases we easily trace a cause from an effect, but we cannot predict effects [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: It is much easier to trace effects back to causes with certainty than to predict effects from causes. If I have one contact with someone with a disease and I get it, we suppose I got it from him, but a doctor cannot predict a disease from one contact. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §1) | |
| A reaction: An interesting, and obviously correct, observation. Her point is that we get more certainty of causes from observing a singular effect than we get certainty of effects from regularities or laws. |
| 4777 | The word 'cause' is an abstraction from a group of causal terms in a language (scrape, push..) [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: The word "cause" can be added to a language in which are already represented many causal concepts; a small selection: scrape, push, wet, carry, eat, burn, knock over, keep off, squash, make, hurt. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], p.93) | |
| A reaction: An interesting point, perhaps reinforcing the Humean idea of causation as a 'natural belief', or the Kantian view of it as a category of thought. Or maybe causation is built into language because it is a feature of reality… |
| 10363 | Causation is relative to how we describe the primary relata [Anscombe, by Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Anscombe has inspired the view that causation is an intensional relation, and takes it to be relative to the descriptions of the primary relata. | |
| From: report of G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], 1) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1 | |
| A reaction: It seems too linguistic to say that there is nothing more to it. It seems relevant in human examples, but if a landslide crushes a tree, what difference does the description make? 'It was just a few rocks and some miserable little tree'. No excuse! |
| 8350 | Since Mill causation has usually been explained by necessary and sufficient conditions [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Since Mill it has been fairly common to explain causation one way or another in terms of 'necessary' and 'sufficient' conditions. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Causality and Determinism [1971], §1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting to see what Hume implies about these criteria. Anscombe is going to propose that causal events are fairly self-evident and self-explanatory, and don't need analyses of conditions. Another approach is regularities and laws. |