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Full Idea
All that is needed for the mind-body problem to be unintelligible is for us to be nominalist, to refuse firmly to hypostasize individual properties.
Gist of Idea
The mind is a property, or it is baffling
Source
Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.3)
Book Ref
Rorty,Richard: 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature' [Blackwell 1980], p.32
A Reaction
Edelman says the mind is a process rather than a property. It might vanish if the clockspeed was turned right down? Nominalism here sounds like behaviourism or instrumentalism. Would Dennett plead guilty?
| 13256 | Nous is unlimited, self-ruling and pure; it is the finest thing, with great discernment and strength [Anaxagoras] |
| 23251 | The Stoics think that soul in the narrow sense is nothing but reason [Stoic school, by Frede,M] |
| 4833 | The human mind is the very idea or knowledge of the human body [Spinoza] |
| 22866 | Mind is never isolated, but only exists in its interactions [Dewey] |
| 3960 | There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties [Davidson] |
| 2553 | The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty] |
| 4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
| 3295 | Inner v outer brings astonishment that we are a particular person [Nagel] |
| 11936 | The two ways proposed to distinguish mind are intentionality or consciousness [Molnar] |