122 ideas
| 3798 | An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett] |
| 22353 | One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 22356 | An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 22359 | Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 22360 | The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 22362 | Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 22364 | Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 3801 | Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse [Dennett] |
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| 6548 | Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan] |
| 7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
| 6531 | Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan] |
| 6532 | Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan] |
| 6534 | One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan] |
| 5500 | Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan] |
| 6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
| 14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| 7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
| 5494 | 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan] |
| 2526 | Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett] |
| 3802 | Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? [Dennett] |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| 6549 | I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan] |
| 7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
| 2523 | That every mammal has a mother is a secure reality, but without foundations [Dennett] |
| 3795 | Causal theories require the "right" sort of link (usually unspecified) [Dennett] |
| 22357 | The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
| 22365 | The Bayesian approach is explicitly subjective about probabilities [Reiss/Sprenger] |
| 4608 | Minds are hard-wired, or trial-and-error, or experimental, or full self-aware [Dennett, by Heil] |
| 7393 | We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett] |
| 7367 | Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett] |
| 4880 | Sentience comes in grades from robotic to super-human; we only draw a line for moral reasons [Dennett] |
| 2528 | Does consciousness need the concept of consciousness? [Dennett] |
| 2525 | Maybe language is crucial to consciousness [Dennett] |
| 7394 | Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett] |
| 7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
| 6543 | Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 3158 | Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett] |
| 2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
| 6537 | Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan] |
| 6624 | Dennett denies the existence of qualia [Dennett, by Lowe] |
| 4873 | What is it like to notice an uncomfortable position when you are asleep? [Dennett] |
| 7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
| 7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
| 6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
| 7376 | We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett] |
| 7372 | In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett] |
| 7373 | Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett] |
| 3797 | I am the sum total of what I directly control [Dennett] |
| 7385 | People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett] |
| 4881 | Being a person must involve having second-order beliefs and desires (about beliefs and desires) [Dennett] |
| 7383 | The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett] |
| 7386 | Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett] |
| 7381 | We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett] |
| 7382 | We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett] |
| 7370 | The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett] |
| 7655 | The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett] |
| 3800 | You can be free even though force would have prevented you doing otherwise [Dennett, by PG] |
| 3803 | Can we conceive of a being with a will freer than our own? [Dennett] |
| 3791 | Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett] |
| 3794 | Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett] |
| 7379 | If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett] |
| 7365 | Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett] |
| 6527 | If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan] |
| 6528 | In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan] |
| 3159 | Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett] |
| 3796 | The active self is a fiction created because we are ignorant of our motivations [Dennett] |
| 3161 | If mind is just an explanation, the explainer must have beliefs [Rey on Dennett] |
| 3986 | The 'intentional stance' is a way of interpreting an entity by assuming it is rational and self-aware [Dennett] |
| 6554 | Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan] |
| 2530 | Could a robot be made conscious just by software? [Dennett] |
| 6545 | If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan] |
| 6541 | Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan] |
| 5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |
| 6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
| 6533 | Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6535 | Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan] |
| 5499 | A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan] |
| 7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
| 4875 | We descend from robots, and our intentionality is composed of billions of crude intentional systems [Dennett] |
| 4879 | There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett] |
| 6544 | Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
| 6530 | We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan] |
| 6536 | Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan] |
| 7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
| 7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
| 4876 | Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett] |
| 7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
| 4878 | The materials for a mind only matter because of speed, and a need for transducers and effectors [Dennett] |
| 6542 | A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan] |
| 3177 | You couldn't drive a car without folk psychology [Dennett] |
| 3987 | Like the 'centre of gravity', desires and beliefs are abstract concepts with no actual existence [Dennett] |
| 4874 | The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [Dennett] |
| 2524 | A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett] |
| 7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
| 23803 | States have content if we can predict them well by assuming intentionality [Dennett, by Schulte] |
| 3984 | The nature of content is entirely based on its functional role [Dennett] |
| 4882 | Concepts are things we (unlike dogs) can think about, because we have language [Dennett] |
| 2529 | Maybe there can be non-conscious concepts (e.g. in bees) [Dennett] |
| 7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
| 7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
| 7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
| 7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
| 7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
| 7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
| 7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
| 3983 | Learning is evolution in the brain [Dennett] |
| 4872 | Most people see an abortion differently if the foetus lacks a brain [Dennett] |
| 6538 | We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
| 5501 | People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan] |
| 6551 | 'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan] |
| 3985 | Biology is a type of engineering, not a search for laws of nature [Dennett] |
| 4877 | Maybe plants are very slow (and sentient) animals, overlooked because we are faster? [Dennett] |
| 3804 | Darwin's idea was the best idea ever [Dennett] |