more on this theme     |     more from this thinker

Single Idea 22417

[filed under theme 18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought ]

Full Idea

Indexicals are like secondary qualities in not figuring in causal explanations of the interactions of objects: physics omits them not because they are relative and egocentric, but because they do not constitute explanatory predicates of a causal theory.

Gist of Idea

Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes

Source

Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2)

Book Ref

McGinn,Colin: 'The Subjective View' [OUP 1983], p.22

A Reaction

They are outside explanatory physics, but not outside explanation. The object moved because a force acted on it; or the object moved because I wanted it moved.

The 19 ideas from 'Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals'

22413 Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn]
22415 Relativity means differing secondary perceptions are not real disagreements [McGinn]
22416 Phenomenalism is correct for secondary qualities, so scepticism is there impossible [McGinn]
22412 Lockean secondary qualities (unlike primaries) produce particular sensory experiences [McGinn]
22414 You don't need to know how a square thing looks or feels to understand squareness [McGinn]
18410 Indexical thought is in relation to my self-consciousness [McGinn]
22417 Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes [McGinn]
22418 I can know indexical truths a priori, unlike their non-indexical paraphrases [McGinn]
22420 The indexical perspective is subjective, incorrigible and constant [McGinn]
22423 Touch doesn't provide direct experience of primary qualities, because touch feels temperature [McGinn]
22426 We can perceive objectively, because primary qualities are not mind-created [McGinn]
18402 Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act [McGinn]
22421 Could there be a mind which lacked secondary quality perception? [McGinn]
22424 Secondary qualities contain information; their variety would be superfluous otherwise [McGinn]
22425 The utility theory says secondary qualities give information useful to human beings [McGinn]
22422 Maybe all possible sense experience must involve both secondary and primary qualities [McGinn]
22427 To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn]
22428 You understood being red if you know the experience involved; not so with thngs being square [McGinn]
7629 We see objects 'directly' by representing them [McGinn]