Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Tim Bayne, Iris Marion Young and Moses Maimonides

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9 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
How we evaluate evidence depends on our background beliefs [Bayne]
     Full Idea: A claim that might be very plausible given one set of background beliefs might be highly implausible when evaluated in the light of a different set of background beliefs.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.7)
Clifford's dictum seems to block our beliefs in morality, politics and philosophy [Bayne]
     Full Idea: Endorsing Clifford's dictum threatens to undermine our right to hold many of our most cherished beliefs about morality, politics, and philosophy, for these are domains in which it is notoriously difficult to secure consensus.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.7)
     A reaction: I would say that those beliefs are amenable to evidence, but the evidence is often highly generalised, which is what makes those subjects notoriously difficult. The existence of a convention is a sort of evidence.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Physicalism correlates brain and mind, explains causation by thought, and makes nature continuous [Bayne]
     Full Idea: The motivations for physicalism about the mind are that it accounts for correlations between states of the brain and states of thought, ...that it accounts for the causal role of thoughts, ...and that it does justice to the continuity of nature.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.2)
     A reaction: [summary] That is a pretty good summary of why I am a physicalist about the mind. I take all other theories to be dead footnotes in the history of thought - unless someone can produce a really good new argument. Which they can't.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 8. Human Thought
Perception reveals what animals think, but humans can disengage thought from perception [Bayne]
     Full Idea: One striking feature of human thought involves our ability to disengage the focus of thought from that of our perceptual attention. ...To get a fix on what an animal is thinking about, one need only determine the object of its perceptual attention.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.4)
     A reaction: What happens when an animal closes its eyes, or stirs violently during sleep? I take the hallmark of human thought to be its multi-level character, and this offers nice evidence for that view. Doing philosophy while driving a car is very revealing.
Some people centre space on themselves; others centre space on the earth [Bayne]
     Full Idea: Egocentric conceptions of space employ a frame of reference that is focused on oneself; ...geocentric conceptions of space, by contrast, employ a frame of reference that is centred on the earth.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.5)
     A reaction: Famously, Europeans nearly always employ the egocentric conception, but many other cultures are geocentric. Thus the salt cellar is either 'to my left' or 'to the west'. In the latter view, everyone always knows their orientation (even indoors?).
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
The alternative to a language of thought is map-like or diagram-like thought [Bayne]
     Full Idea: One could think that the structure of thought has more in common with that of maps or diagrams, and is not particularly language-like.
     From: Tim Bayne (Thought: a very short introduction [2013], Ch.2)
     A reaction: It seems unwise to be ensnared by analogies on this one, since the phenomenon is buried deep. You can no more infer what goes on underneath than you can infer electrons from looking at trees?
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 12. Feminism
As a young girl assumes her status as feminine, she acts in a more fragile immobile way [Young,IM]
     Full Idea: The young girl acquires many subject habits of feminine body comportment - walking, tilting her head, standing and sitting like a girl, and so on ….The more a girl assumes her status as feminine, the more she takes herself to be fragile and immobile.
     From: Iris Marion Young (On Female Body Experience [2005], p.43), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 3 'Aspects'
     A reaction: This strikes me as true of young women, but it largely wears off as they get older, at least among modern women. A whole book could be written about women and smiling.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
We can approach knowledge of God by negative attributes [Maimonides]
     Full Idea: You will come nearer to the knowledge and comprehension of God by the negative attributes.
     From: Moses Maimonides (The Guide of the Perplexed [1190], p.86), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 2 'Negation'
     A reaction: Illustrated by grasping what a ship is by eliminating other categories it might belong to. The assumption is that you have a known and finite list - something like Aristotle's categories. Maimonides fears we know too little for positive attributes.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
Thinking of God as resembling humans results from a bad translation of Genesis 1:26 [Maimonides]
     Full Idea: Mistranslation of 'image' has been the cause of a crass anthropomorphism because of the verse 'Let us make man in Our image after Our likeness' (Gen.1:26). They think God has the shape and outline of man, ..with face and hands like themselves.
     From: Moses Maimonides (The Guide of the Perplexed [1190], I.1)
     A reaction: It's interesting that Michelangelo still visualises God as an old man. The idea won't go away, presumably because God is understood as a 'person', in Locke's sense, though of a very special kind.