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Single Idea 3368

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind ]

Full Idea

It is generally held that there are two broad categories of mental phenomena - qualitative states and intentional states (but what do they have in common?).

Gist of Idea

Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect?

Source

Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 23)

Book Ref

Kim,Jaegwon: 'Philosophy of Mind' [Westview 1998], p.23


A Reaction

I am happy to accept this orthodox modern analysis. Putting it more simply: minds exist to enable experience and thought. I judge a priori that the two aspects are not separate. Qualia exist to serve thought, and qualia are necessary for thought.


The 14 ideas with the same theme [observing features of a mind]:

Mind is self-ruling, pure, ordering and ubiquitous [Anaxagoras, by Plato]
Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle]
Eight parts of the soul: five senses, seeds, speech and reason [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius]
The spirit in the soul wants freedom, power and honour [Galen]
Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry]
The will is not a desire, but the faculty of affirming what is true or false [Spinoza]
Will and intellect are the same thing [Spinoza]
The will is finite, but the intellect is infinite [Spinoza]
Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions [Fichte]
Ideas are not spatial, and don't have distances between them [Frege]
Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty]
Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim]
Mental states have causal powers [Fodor]
Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands]