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Single Idea 21804

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 1. Faculties ]

Full Idea

Faculties are either complete fictions, or nothing but metaphysical beings or universals, which are used to forming from particulars (as 'stoneness' is to a stone).

Gist of Idea

Faculties are either fictions, or the abstract universals of ideas

Source

Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 48S), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 3

Book Ref

'The Faculties: a history', ed/tr. Perler,Dominic [OUP 2015], p.170

A Reaction

So they are, at best, the sources of our concepts. Does that mean one faculty for each concept, or one huge concept-generating faculty?

The 20 ideas with the same theme [theory that each distinct capacity has a specific source]:

24061 If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle]
20204 Whether the mind has parts is irrelevant, since it obviously has distinct capacities [Aristotle]
23906 Courage from spirit is natural and unconquerable, as seen in the young [Aristotle]
20785 Our conceptions arise from experience, similarity, analogy, transposition, composition and opposition [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
21799 We just use the word 'faculty' when we don't know the psychological cause [Galen]
23264 Philosophers think faculties are in substances, and invent a faculty for every activity [Galen]
22107 Sensations are transmitted to 'internal senses' in the brain, chiefly to 'phantasia' and 'imagination' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump]
24026 Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes]
21800 Descartes mentions many cognitive faculties, but reduces them to will and intellect [Descartes, by Schmid]
21804 Faculties are either fictions, or the abstract universals of ideas [Spinoza]
2869 Kant's only answer as to how synthetic a priori judgements are possible was that we have a 'faculty'! [Nietzsche on Kant]
9346 Judgements which are essentially and strictly universal reveal our faculty of a priori cognition [Kant]
5572 Reason has logical and transcendental faculties [Kant]
24145 Mind is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification, aimed at control [Nietzsche]
23191 Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche]
14868 Our primary faculty is perception of structure, as when looking in a mirror [Nietzsche]
23943 Distinguishing reason from passion is based on an archaic 'faculty' theory [Solomon]
2539 Mental modules for language, social, action, theory, space, emotion [McGinn]
20657 There are 23 core brain functions, with known circuit, transmitters, genes and behaviour [Watson]
22135 Our concepts can never fully capture reality, but simplification does not falsify [Boulter]