160 ideas
3798 | An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett] |
11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
20923 | We take part in objective truth, rather than observe it from a distance [Zimmermann,J] |
20926 | Hermeneutic knowledge is not objective, but embraces interpretations [Zimmermann,J] |
3801 | Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse [Dennett] |
11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
12056 | An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins] |
12050 | Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins] |
14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
13128 | 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins] |
16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
12055 | Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins] |
12059 | A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins] |
12052 | We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins] |
12063 | Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins] |
12051 | If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins] |
12053 | 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins] |
12054 | Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins] |
11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
12047 | We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins] |
14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
12057 | Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins] |
14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
2526 | Philosophers regularly confuse failures of imagination with insights into necessity [Dennett] |
16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
3802 | Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? [Dennett] |
11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
20924 | In phenomenology, all perception is 'seeing as' [Zimmermann,J] |
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] |
16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
12064 | The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins] |
12049 | Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins] |
11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
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] |
3158 | Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett] |
2527 | Unconscious intentionality is the foundation of the mind [Dennett] |
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] |
7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
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] |
12065 | Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins] |
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] |
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] |
2530 | Could a robot be made conscious just by software? [Dennett] |
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] |
7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
4876 | Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett] |
7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
4878 | The materials for a mind only matter because of speed, and a need for transducers and effectors [Dennett] |
3987 | Like the 'centre of gravity', desires and beliefs are abstract concepts with no actual existence [Dennett] |
3177 | You couldn't drive a car without folk psychology [Dennett] |
2524 | A language of thought doesn't explain content [Dennett] |
4874 | The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [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] |
11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
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] |
20927 | The hermeneutic circle is between the reader's self-understanding, and the world of the text [Zimmermann,J] |
20933 | Natural law theorists fear that without morality, law could be based on efficiency [Zimmermann,J] |
3983 | Learning is evolution in the brain [Dennett] |
4872 | Most people see an abortion differently if the foetus lacks a brain [Dennett] |
7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
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] |
20929 | Traditionally, God dictated the Torah to Moses, unlike the later biblical writings [Zimmermann,J] |