79 ideas
22246 | A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati] |
Full Idea: For logic purposes, a train of reasoning has to be construed as synchronic. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5.2) | |
A reaction: If we are looking for a gulf between logic and the real world this is a factor to be considered, along with Nietzsche's observation about necessary simplification. [ref to Kaplan 'Afterthoughts' 1989, 584-5] |
16357 | Mental files are the counterparts of singular terms [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files are the mental counterparts of singular terms. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: A thoroughly satisfactory theory. We can build up a picture of filing merging, duplication, ambiguity, error etc. Eventually neuroscience will map the whole system, and we will have cracked it. |
16588 | I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I sooner judged that what lacks all form does not exist, than thought of as something in between form and nothing, neither formed nor nothing, unformed and next to nothing. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XII.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1 | |
A reaction: Scholastics were struck by the contrast between this remark, and the remark of Averroes (Idea 16587) that prime matter was halfway existence. Their two great authorities disagreed! This sort of thing stimulated the revival of metaphysics. |
22979 | Three main questions seem to be whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I am told that I can ask three sorts of questions - whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.10) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a very Aristotelian approach. I am pleased to see that what it is and what sort it is are not conflated. The first one must be its individual essence, and the second its generic essence. |
16360 | Identity statements are informative if they link separate mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: An identity statement 'A=B' is informative to the extent that the terms 'A' and 'B' are associated with distinct mental files. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Hence the information in 'Scott is the author of 'Waverley'' is information about what is in your mind, not what is happening in Scotland. This is Recanati's solution to one of Frege's classic puzzles. 'Morning Star' and 'Evening Star' files. Nice. |
3912 | I must exist in order to be mistaken, so that even if I am mistaken, I can't be wrong about my own existence [Augustine] |
Full Idea: Since therefore I must exist in order to be mistaken, then even if I am mistaken, there can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I exist…. I know that I exist, and I also know that I know. | |
From: Augustine (City of God [c.427], Ch.XI.26) | |
A reaction: Fine, but the main problem is his over-confidence about a stable personal identity that does the thinking. |
16374 | There is a continuum from acquaintance to description in knowledge, depending on the link [Recanati] |
Full Idea: It is not too difficult to imagine a continuum of cases between straightforward instances of knowledge by acquaintance and straightforward instances of knowledge by description, with more or less tenuous informational links to the referent. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 12.2) |
22167 | Our images of bodies are not produced by the bodies, but by our own minds [Augustine, by Aquinas] |
Full Idea: Augustine says bodies don't form images in our spirit; our spirit does that itself with amazing quickness. ...So the appearances under which mind knows things aren't drawn from the things themselves. | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Thomas Aquinas - Quodlibeta 8.2.1 | |
A reaction: This is Augustine's theory of 'illumination' - that God creates experience within us. His theory was soon discarded by the early scholastics. |
22117 | Our minds grasp reality by direct illumination (rather than abstraction from experience) [Augustine, by Matthews] |
Full Idea: Instead of supposing that what we know can be abstracted from sensible particulars that instantiate such knowledge, Augustine insists that our mind is so constituted as to see 'intelligible realities' directly by inner illumination. | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine p.74 | |
A reaction: His 'theory of illumination'. This seems to be a sort of super-rationalism. This doesn't make clear the role of sensations. Surely he doesn't thing that we just bypass them? |
22981 | Mind and memory are the same, as shown in 'bear it in mind' or 'it slipped from mind' [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The mind and the memory are one and the same. We even call the memory the mind, for when we tell a person to remember something, we tell them to 'bear this in mind', and when we forget something 'it slipped out of my mind'. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
A reaction: This idea has become familiar in modern neuroscience, I think, presumably because we do not find distinct types of neurons for consciousness and for memory. |
22980 | Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The memory contains the innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these can have been conveyed to me by the bodily senses. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.12) | |
A reaction: Even if you have a fairly empirical view of the sources of mathematics (a view with which I sympathise), it must by admitted that our endless extrapolations from the sources also reside in memory. So we remember thoughts as well as experiences. |
22983 | We would avoid remembering sorrow or fear if that triggered the emotions afresh [Augustine] |
Full Idea: If we had to experience sorrow or fear every time that we mentioned these emotions, no one would be willing to speak of them. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
A reaction: Remembering the death of a loved one can trigger fresh grief, but remembering their dangerous illness from which they recovered no longer contains the feeling of fear. |
22977 | I can distinguish different smells even when I am not experiencing them [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I can distinguish the scent of lilies from that of violets, even though there is no scent at all in my nostrils. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
A reaction: Augustine has a nice introspective account of how we experience memory, and identifies lots of puzzling features. I know I can identify the smell of vinegar, but I can't bring it to mind, the way I can the appearance of roses. |
22982 | Why does joy in my mind make me happy, but joy in my memory doesn't? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: How can it be that my mind can be happy because of the joy that is in it, and yet my memory is not sad by reason of the sadness that is in it? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
A reaction: This seems to contradict his thought in Idea 22981, that memory and mind are the same. Recall seems to be a part of consciousness which is not fully wired up to the rest of the mind. |
13165 | Geometrical proofs do not show causes, as when we prove a triangle contains two right angles [Proclus] |
Full Idea: Geometry does not ask 'why?' ..When from the exterior angle equalling two opposite interior angles it is shown that the interior angles make two right angles, this is not a causal demonstration. With no exterior angle they still equal two right angles. | |
From: Proclus (Commentary on Euclid's 'Elements' [c.452], p.161-2), quoted by Paolo Mancosu - Explanation in Mathematics §5 | |
A reaction: A very nice example. It is hard to imagine how one might demonstrate the cause of the angles making two right angles. If you walk, turn left x°, then turn left y°, then turn left z°, and x+y+z=180°, you end up going in the original direction. |
22978 | Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
A reaction: He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind. |
22984 | Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I do not understand the power of memory that is in myself, although without it I could not even speak of myself. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.16) | |
A reaction: Even if the self is not identical with memory, this idea seems to establish that memory is an essential aspect of the self. This point is neglected by those who see the self as an entity (the 'soul pearl') which persists through all experience. |
5982 | If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: How do prophets see the future, if there is not a future to be seen? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.17) | |
A reaction: The answer, I suspect, is that prophets can't see the future. The prospect that the future already exists would seem to saboutage human freedom and responsibility, and point to Calvinist predestination, and even fatalism. |
6683 | The contact of spirit and body is utterly amazing, and incomprehensible [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The manner of contact of spirit with body, which produces a living being, is utterly amazing and beyond our powers of comprehension | |
From: Augustine (City of God [c.427], XXI.10) | |
A reaction: This leads to a rather clear objection against a theory which needs a miracle to explain a common natural phenomenon. At least Augustine was beginning to recognise that interaction is a bit of a problem. |
18409 | Indexicals apply to singular thought, and mental files have essentially indexical features [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I defend the applicability of the indexical model to singular thought, and to mental files qua vehicles of singular thought. Mental files, I will argue, possess the essential features of indexicals. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 05.1) | |
A reaction: I love mental files, but am now (thanks to Cappelen and Dever) deeply averse to giving great significance to indexicals. A revised account of files will be needed. |
22247 | Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati] |
Full Idea: People once took indexicality to be exclusively a property of language, ....but a series of examples seemed to establish that the thought expressed by uttering an indexical sentence is itself indexical (and is thus 'essential'). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 6.1) | |
A reaction: Perry's example of not realising it is him leaking the sugar in a supermarket is the best known example. Was this a key moment for realising that philosophy of thought is (pace Dummett) more important than philosophy of language? |
22248 | How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Indexical thoughts create an obvious problem with regard to communication. How can we manage to communicate such thoughts to those who are not in the right context? | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
A reaction: One answer is that you often cannot communicate them. If I write on a wall 'I am here now', that doesn't tell the next passer-by very much. But 'it's raining here' said in a telephone call works fine - if you know the location of the caller. |
16354 | Indexicality is closely related to singularity, exploiting our direct relations with things [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Singularity and indexicality are closely related: for indexicals systematically exploit the contextual relations in which we stand to what we talk about. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Recanati builds a nice case that we may only have an ontology of singular objects because we conceptualise and refer to things in a particular way. He denies the ontology, but that's the bit that interests me. |
22976 | Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine] |
Full Idea: In memory everything is preserved separately, according to its category. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as the first seeds of the idea that the mind functions by means of mental files. Our memories of cats are 'close to' or 'linked to' our memories of dogs. |
16371 | Files can be confused, if two files correctly have a single name, or one file has two names [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Paderewski cases are cases in which a subject associates two distinct files with a single name. Inverse Paderewski cases are cases in which there are two names but the subject associates them with a single file. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 10.1) | |
A reaction: In the inverse there are two people with the same name, and someone thinks they are one person (with their combined virtues and vices). E.g. Einstein the famous physicist, and Einstein the famous musicologist. What a man! |
16373 | Encylopedic files have further epistemic links, beyond the basic one [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The reference of a file is the object to which the subject stands in the relevant epistemic relation. In the case of encylopedic entries there is an arbitrary number of distinct relations. The file grows new links in an opportunistic manner. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 11.3) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced by Recanati's claim that encylopedic files are a distinct type. My files seem to grow these opportunistic links right from their inception. All files seem to have that feature. A file could have four links at its moment of launching. |
16375 | Singular thoughts need a mental file, and an acquaintance relation from file to object [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The mental file framework rests on two principles: that the subject cannot entertain a singular thought about an object without possessing and exercising a mental file about it, and that this requires an acquaintance relation with the object. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 12.3) | |
A reaction: I'm puzzled by the case where I design and build a completely new object. I seem to assemble a file, and only bestow singularity on it towards the end. Or the singularity can just be a placeholder, referred to as 'something'. […see p.158] |
16377 | Expected acquaintance can create a thought-vehicle file, but without singular content [Recanati] |
Full Idea: On my view, actual acquaintance is not necessary to open a mental file; expected acquaintance will suffice; yet opening a mental file itself is not sufficient to entertain a singular thought-content. It only enables a thought-vehicle. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 13.1) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why I can't create a file with no expectation at all of acquaintance, as in a fictional case. Depends what 'acquaintance' means. Recanati longs for precise distinctions where they may not be available. |
16378 | An 'indexed' file marks a file which simulates the mental file of some other person [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Files function metarepresentationally if they serve to represent how other subjects think about objects in the world. ..An 'indexed' file has an index referring to the other subject whose files the indexed file stands for or simulates. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 14.1) | |
A reaction: Presumably there is an implicit index on all files, which says in a conversation whether my interlocutor does or does not hold the same file-type as me. Recanati wants many 'types' of files, but I suspect there is just one file type. |
16387 | Reference by mental files is Millian, in emphasising acquaintance, rather than satisfaction [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The mental file account preserves the original, Millian inspiration of direct reference theories in giving pride of place to acquaintance relations and downplaying satisfaction factors. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.3) | |
A reaction: I find this a very satisfying picture, in which reference links to the simple label of a file (which could be a number), and not to its contents. There are tricky cases of non-existents, fictional entities and purely possible entities to consider. |
16358 | The reference of a file is fixed by what it relates to, not the information it contains [Recanati] |
Full Idea: What files refer to is not determined by properties which the subject takes the referent to have (information, or misinformation, in the file), but through the relations on which the files are based. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Maybe. 'Lot 22'. I can build up a hypothetical file by saying 'Imagine an animal which is F, G, H…', and build a reference that relates to nothing. Maybe Recanati overestimates the role of his 'epistemically rewarding' relations in file creation. |
16361 | A mental file treats all of its contents as concerning one object [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The role of a mental file is precisely to treat all the information as if it concerned one and the same object, from which it derives. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Recanati's book focuses entirely on singular objects, but we presumably have files for properties, generalisation, groups etc. Can they only be thought about if they are reified? Maybe. |
16367 | There are transient 'demonstrative' files, habitual 'recognitional' files, cumulative 'encyclopedic' files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A 'demonstrative' file only exists during the demonstrative relation to something; …a 'recognitional' file is based on 'familiarity' (a disposition to recognise); …an 'encylopedic' file contains all the information on something, however it is gained. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 6.1-3) | |
A reaction: [picked as samples of his taxonomy, pp.70-73] I'm OK with this as long as he doesn't think the categories are sharply separated. I'm inclined to think of files as a single type, drifting in and out of different of modes. |
16368 | Files are hierarchical: proto-files, then first-order, then higher-order encyclopedic [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There is a hierarchy of files. Proto-files are the most basic; conceptual files are generated from them. First-order ones are more basic, as the higher-order encylopedic entries presuppose them. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 6.3) | |
A reaction: This hierarchy might fit into a decent account of categories, if a plausible one could be found. A good prospect for exploring categories would be to start with mental file-types, and work outwards through their relations. |
16370 | A file has a 'nucleus' through its relation to the object, and a 'periphery' of links to other files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I take a file to have a dual structure, with a 'nucleus' of the file consisting of information derived through the relevant epistemically rewarding relation, while the 'periphery' consists of information derived through linking with other files. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 8.3) | |
A reaction: This sounds strikingly like essentialism to me, though what constitutes the essence is different from the usual explanatory basics. The link, though, is in the causal connection. If we naturally 'essentialise', that will control file-formation. |
22242 | Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files are entries in the mental encyclopedia, that is, concepts. Some, following Grice, say they are information collections, but I think of them as containers. Collections are determined by their elements, but containers have independent identity. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
A reaction: [compressed] [Grice reference is 'Vacuous Names' (1969)] I agree with Recanati. The point is that you can invoke a file by a label, even when you don't know what the content is. |
22243 | The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Frege's Constraint says if a subject believes an object is both F and not-F (as in 'Frege cases'), then the subject thinks of that object under distinct modes of presentation. Having distinct mental files of the object is sufficient to generate this. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
A reaction: [compressed] When you look at how many semantic puzzles (notably from Frege and Kripke) are solved by the existence of labelled mental files, the case for them is overwhelming. |
16381 | The content of thought is what is required to understand it (which involves hearers) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: As Evans emphasises, what matters when we want to individuate semantic content is what would count as a proper understanding of an utterance; but 'understanding' defines the task of the hearer. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 16.2) | |
A reaction: [cites Evans 1982: 92, 143n, 171] I like to place (following Aristotle) understanding at the centre of all of philosophy, so this seems to me an appealing idea. It makes misunderstandings interesting. |
16365 | Mental files are individual concepts (thought constituents) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I want mental files (properly speaking) to serve as individual concepts, i.e. thought constituents. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.3) | |
A reaction: This is why the concept of mental files is so neat - it gives you a theory of reference and a theory of concepts. I love the files approach because it precisely fits my own introspective experiences. Hope I'm not odd in that way. |
9569 | The origin of geometry started in sensation, then moved to calculation, and then to reason [Proclus] |
Full Idea: It is unsurprising that geometry was discovered in the necessity of Nile land measurement, since everything in the world of generation goes from imperfection to perfection. They would naturally pass from sense-perception to calculation, and so to reason. | |
From: Proclus (Commentary on Euclid's 'Elements' [c.452]), quoted by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 9.12 n55 | |
A reaction: The last sentence is the core of my view on abstraction, that it proceeds by moving through levels of abstraction, approaching more and more general truths. |
16356 | There may be two types of reference in language and thought: descriptive and direct [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A widely held view, originating with Russell, says there are two types of reference (both in language and thought): descriptive reference, and direct reference. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.2) | |
A reaction: I would rather say is there is just one sort of reference, and as many ways of achieving it as you care to come up with. With that view, most of the problems vanish, as far as I can see. People refer. Sentences are nothing but trouble. |
16393 | In super-direct reference, the referent serves as its own vehicle of reference [Recanati] |
Full Idea: In super-direct reference, the sort of thing Russell was after, there is no mode of presentation: the referent itself serves as its own vehicle, as it were. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 18.2) | |
A reaction: To me this is a step too far, because reference is not some physical object like a chair; it is a mental or linguistic phenomenon. Chair's don't refer themselves; it is people who refer. |
16386 | Direct reference is strong Millian (just a tag) or weak Kaplanian (allowing descriptions as well) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There are two notions of direct reference, the strong Millian notion (where the expression is like a 'tag' with no satisfaction mechanism), and the weaker Kaplanian notion (where reference is compatible with carrying a descriptive meaning). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.3) | |
A reaction: I immediately favour the Millian view, which gives a minimal basis for reference, as just a 'peg' (Marcus) to hang things on. I don't take a Millian reference to be the object itself. The concept of a 'tag' or 'label' is key. Mental files have tags. |
16372 | Sense determines reference says same sense/same reference; new reference means new sense [Recanati] |
Full Idea: To say that sense determines reference is to say that the same sense cannot determine distinct referents - any distinction at the level of reference entails a corresponding distinction at the level of sense. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 10.2) | |
A reaction: Does 'the sentry at the gate' change its sense when the guard is changed? Yes. 'The sentry at the gate will stop you'. 'The sentry at the gate is my cousin'. De re/de dicto reference. So changes of de re reference seem to change the sense? |
16388 | We need sense as well as reference, but in a non-descriptive form, and mental files do that [Recanati] |
Full Idea: My view inherits from Frege 'modes of presentation'. Reference is not enough, and sense is needed. …We must make room for non-descriptive modes of presentation, and these are mental files. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 18.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Recanati aims to avoid the standard Kripkean criticisms of descriptivism, while being able to handle Frege's puzzles. I take Recanati's mental files theory to be the most promising approach. |
16359 | Sense is a mental file (not its contents); similar files for Cicero and Tully are two senses [Recanati] |
Full Idea: What plays the role of sense is not information in a file, but the file itself. If there are two distinct files, one for 'Cicero' and one for 'Tully', then there are two distinct (non-descriptive) senses, even if the information in both files is the same. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.4) | |
A reaction: This may be the best idea in Recanati's book. A sense might be a 'way of coming at the information', rather than some set of descriptions. |
16355 | Problems with descriptivism are reference by perception, by communications and by indexicals [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Three problems with Frege's idea of descriptions in the head are: reference through perception, reference through communicative chains, and reference through indexicals. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 3.1) | |
A reaction: In the end reference has to occur in the head, even if it is social or causal or whatever, so these are not problems that worry me. |
16348 | Descriptivism says we mentally relate to objects through their properties [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Descriptivism is the view that our mental relation to individual objects goes through properties of those objects. …This is so because our knowledge of objects is mediated by our knowledge of their properties. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 1.1) | |
A reaction: The implication is that if you view an object as just a bundle of properties, then you are obliged to hold a descriptive theory of reference. Hence a 'singularist' theory of reference seems to need a primitive notion of an object's identity. |
16384 | Definite descriptions reveal either a predicate (attributive use) or the file it belongs in (referential) [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A definite description may contribute either the singular predicate it encodes (attributive use) or the mental file to what that predicate belongs (referential use). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.1) | |
A reaction: This nicely explains Donnellan's distinction in terms of mental files. 'Green' may refer in a shop, but isn't much use in a wood. What to make of 'He's a bit of a Bismark'? |
16352 | A rigid definite description can be attributive, not referential: 'the actual F, whoever he is….' [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A rigid use of a definite description need not be referential: it may be attributive. Thus I may say: 'The actual F, whoever he is, is G'. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Recanati offers this as a criticism of the attempted 2-D solution to descriptivist accounts of singularity. The singularity is not strong enough, he says. |
22245 | A linguistic expression refers to what its associated mental file refers to [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Mental files determine the reference of linguistic expressions: an expression refers to what the mental file associated with it refers to (at the time of tokening). | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 5) | |
A reaction: Invites the question of how mental files manage to refer, prior to the arrival of a linguistic expression. A mental file is usually fully of descriptions, but it might be no more than a label. |
16353 | Singularity cannot be described, and it needs actual world relations [Recanati] |
Full Idea: As Peirce insisted, singularity as such cannot be described, it can only be given through actual world relations. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: [Peirce - Exact Logic, Papers 3, 1967, §419] This is the key idea for Recanati's case for basing our grasp of singular things on their relation to a mental file. |
16382 | Fregean modes of presentation can be understood as mental files [Recanati] |
Full Idea: A mental file plays the role which Fregean theory assigns to modes of presentation. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 17.1) | |
A reaction: I'm a fan of mental files, and this is a nice pointer to how the useful Fregean insights can be written in a way better grounded in brain operations. Rewriting Frege in neuroscience terms is a nice project for someone. |
16389 | If two people think 'I am tired', they think the same thing, and they think different things [Recanati] |
Full Idea: If you and I think 'I am tired', there is a sense in which we think the same thing, and another sense in which we think different things. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 18.1) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice simple account of the semantic distinctiveness of indexicals, which obviously requires a 'two-tiered framework'. He cites Kaplan and Perry as background. |
16363 | Indexicals (like mental files) determine their reference relationally, not by satisfaction [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The class of indexicals have the same property as mental files, that their reference is determined relationally rather than satisfactionally. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.1) | |
A reaction: Recanati is building an account of reference through mental files. This idea may be the clearest point I have yet encountered about indexicals, showing why they are of particular interest to philosophers. |
16364 | Indexical don't refer; only their tokens do [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Indexicals do not refer; only tokens of an indexical refer | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.1) | |
A reaction: Thus 'Thurs 23rd March 2013' refers, but 'now' doesn't, unless someone produces an utterance of it. This is why indexicals are sometimes called 'token-reflexives'. |
16351 | In 2-D semantics, reference is determined, then singularity by the truth of a predication [Recanati] |
Full Idea: In the two-dimensional framework, what characterises the singular case is the fact that truth-evaluation (of possessing of the reference-fixing property) takes place at a later stage than reference determination. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This sounds psychologically plausible, which is a big (and unfashionable) plus for me. 1) what are we talking about? 2) what are we saying about it, 3) is it true? |
16350 | Two-D semantics is said to help descriptivism of reference deal with singular objects [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Descriptivism has trouble catching the singularity of objects, construing them as only directly about properties. …To get the truth-conditions right, it is claimed, the descriptivist only as to go two-dimensional. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.1) | |
A reaction: I suspect that the descriptivist only has a problem here because context is being ignored. 'That man on the beach' can quickly be made uniquely singular after a brief chat. |
16380 | Russellian propositions are better than Fregean thoughts, by being constant through communication [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The Russellian notion of a proposition is arguably a better candidate for the status of semantic content than the Fregean notion of a thought. For the proposition remains constant from one person to the next. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 16.2) | |
A reaction: A good point, though I rebel against Russellian propositions because they are too much out in the world, and propositions strike me as features of minds. We need to keep propositions separate from facts. |
22250 | There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati] |
Full Idea: There is the speaker's thought and the thought formed by the hearer. That is all there is. We don't need an additional entity, the thought expressed by the utterance. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.2) | |
A reaction: This fits my view of propositions nicely. They are the two 'thoughts'. The notion of some further abstract 'proposition' with its own mode of independent existence strikes me as ontologically absurd. |
22249 | The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati] |
Full Idea: The Naive Conception of Communication rests on the idea that communication is the replication of thoughts: the thought the hearer entertains when he understands what the speaker is saying is the very thought which the speaker expressed. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
A reaction: It is hard to believe that any modern thinker would believe such a view, given holistic views of language etc. |
22118 | Augustine created the modern concept of the will [Augustine, by Matthews] |
Full Idea: The modern concept of the will is often said to originate with Augustine. | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine p.74 | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that this is the source of the trouble. How can a thing be intrinsically free? Surely freedom is always a contextual concept? |
4348 | Love, and do what you will [Augustine] |
Full Idea: Love, and do what you will. | |
From: Augustine (works [c.415]) | |
A reaction: This sounds libertarian, but Augustine had a stern concept of what love required. It nicely captures one of the essential ideas of virtue ethics. |
7821 | Pagans produced three hundred definitions of the highest good [Augustine, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: Augustine claimed that the pagan schools between them had produced nearly three hundred different definitions of the highest good. | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.5 | |
A reaction: I would expect the right definition to be in there somewhere, but no doubt Augustine's definition made it 301. Perhaps the biggest problem of human life is that (as with the Kennedy assassination) proliferating stories obscure the true story. |
22985 | Everyone wants happiness [Augustine] |
Full Idea: Surely happiness is what everyone wants, so much so that there can be none who do not want it? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.20) | |
A reaction: His concept of happiness is, of course, religious. Occasionally you meet habitual grumblers about life who give the impression that they are only happy when they are discontented. So happiness is achieving desires, not feeling good? |
22119 | Augustine said (unusually) that 'ought' does not imply 'can' [Augustine, by Matthews] |
Full Idea: Augustine insisted that 'ought' does not, in any straightforward way, imply 'can' - which distinguishes him from most modern ethicists. | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine p.74 | |
A reaction: Not unreasonable. I ought to help my ailing friend who lives abroad, but I haven't the time or money to do it. We can experience impossibilities as duties. Impossibilities are just excuses. Augustine is opposing the Pelagian heresy. |
5984 | Maybe time is an extension of the mind [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I begin to wonder whether time is an extension of the mind itself. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.26) | |
A reaction: The observation that the mind creates a 'specious present' (spreading experience out over a short fraction of second) reinforces this. Personally I like David Marshall's proposal that consciousness is entirely memory, which would deny this idea. |
22888 | To be aware of time it can only exist in the mind, as memory or anticipation [Augustine, by Bardon] |
Full Idea: Augustine answers that for us to be aware of time it must exist only in the mind, …and the difference between past and future is just the difference between memory and anticipation. | |
From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's' | |
A reaction: This is an extreme idealist view. Are we to say that the past consists only of what can be remembered, and the future only of what is anticipated? Absurd anti-realism, in my view. Where do his concepts come from, asks Le Poidevin. |
5980 | How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: A short time ago or a short time ahead we might put at ten days, but how can anything which does not exist be either long or short? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15) | |
A reaction: A nice question, which gets at the paradoxical nature of time very nicely. How can it be long, but non-existent? We could break the paradox by concluding '..and therefore time does exist', even though we can't see how. |
5979 | If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: Of the three divisions of time, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14) | |
A reaction: This is the oldest bewilderment about time, which naturally leads us to the thought that time cannot actually 'exist'. The remark implies that at least 'now' is safe, but that also succumbs to paradox pretty quickly. |
5981 | The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: We cannot say that the whole of the current year is present, and if the whole of it is not present, the year is not present. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15) | |
A reaction: Another nice way of presenting the paradox of time. We are in a particular year, so it has to be real. |
5978 | I know what time is, until someone asks me to explain it [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I know well enough what time is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14) | |
A reaction: A justly famous remark, even though it adds nothing to our knowledge of time. This sort of thought pushes us towards accepting many things as axiomatic, such as time, space, identity, persons, mind. |
5983 | I disagree with the idea that time is nothing but cosmic movement [Augustine] |
Full Idea: I once heard a learned man say that time is nothing but the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars, but I do not agree. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.22) | |
A reaction: It is tempting to say that you either take time or movement as axiomatic, and describe one in terms of the other, but you are stuck unable to give the initial statement of the axiom without mentioning the second property you were saving for later. |
5977 | Heaven and earth must be created, because they are subject to change [Augustine] |
Full Idea: The fact that heaven and earth are there proclaims that they were created, for they are subject to change and variation; ..the meaning of change and variation is that something is there which was not there before. | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.04) | |
A reaction: It seems possible that the underlying matter is eternal (as in various conservation laws, such as that of energy), and that all change is in the form rather than the substance. |
22887 | If God existed before creation, why would a perfect being desire to change things? [Augustine, by Bardon] |
Full Idea: If nothing existed by God before creation, then what could have happened to, or within, God that led God to decide to create the universe at that particular moment? Why would an eternal or perfect being want or need to change? | |
From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's' | |
A reaction: I suppose you could reply that change is superior to stasis, but then why did God delay the creation? |
5976 | If God is outside time in eternity, can He hear prayers? [Augustine] |
Full Idea: O Lord, since you are outside time in eternity, are you unaware of the things that I tell you? | |
From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.01) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as the single most difficult and most elusive question about the nature of a supreme divine being. If the being is trapped in time, as we are, it is greatly diminished, and if it is outside, it is hard to see how it could be a participant. |
16702 | All things are in the present time to God [Augustine] |
Full Idea: To God there is neither past nor future, but all things are present. | |
From: Augustine (Some Questions about time [c.420], 17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3 | |
A reaction: Presumably God's present was crowded, so He invented time to spread them out? |
22116 | Augustine identified Donatism, Pelagianism and Manicheism as the main heresies [Augustine, by Matthews] |
Full Idea: Augustine did the most to define Christian heresy. The three most prominent were Donatism, Pelagianism (that humans are perfectible), and Manicheism (that good and evil are equally basic metaphysical realities). | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Gareth B. Matthews - Augustine p.73 | |
A reaction: Manicheans had presumably been studying Empedocles. (I suppose it's too late to identify Christianity as a heresy?). |
19338 | Augustine said evil does not really exist, and evil is a limitation in goodness [Augustine, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: Augustine solution to the problem of evil was to say that, strictly speaking, evil does not exist. Human beings are not part evil and part good, but rather just a limited amount of goodness. | |
From: report of Augustine (works [c.415]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
A reaction: Augustine was rebelling against Manicheanism, which he espoused when young, which proposed a good and an evil force. An apathetic slob seems devoid of goodness, but is not evil. It takes extra effort to perform active evil. |