more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 7108

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind ]

Full Idea

The unity of the thousand active consciousnesses through which I have added two and two to make four, is the transcendent object '2+2=4'. Without the permanence of this eternal truth, it would be impossible to conceive of a real unity of mind.

Gist of Idea

The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it

Source

Jean-Paul Sartre (Transcendence of the Ego [1937], I (A))

Book Ref

Sartre,Jean-Paul: 'The Transcendence of the Ego' [Routledge 2004], p.6

A Reaction

This is the germ of externalism, here presented as a Platonic attitude to arithmetic, rather than being about water or gold. He claims that internalist attitudes to unity are fictions. I am inclined to think he is wrong, and that unity is biological.

The 25 ideas with the same theme [unified character of the thinking mind]:

2127 The mind has parts, because we have inner conflicts [Plato]
1737 The soul seems to have an infinity of parts [Aristotle on Plato]
24046 Understanding is impossible, if it involves the understanding having parts [Aristotle]
1717 If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity [Aristotle]
24053 If a soul have parts, what unites them? [Aristotle]
1721 What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd [Aristotle]
5145 The rational and irrational parts of the soul are either truly separate, or merely described that way [Aristotle]
21387 The separate elements and capacities of a mind cannot be distinguished [Lucretius]
5884 How can one mind perceive so many dissimilar sensations? [Cicero]
5887 The soul has a single nature, so it cannot be divided, and hence it cannot perish [Cicero]
5506 If soul was like body, its parts would be separate, without communication [Plotinus]
2302 Faculties of the mind aren't parts, as one mind uses them [Descartes]
21805 Spinoza held that the mind is just a bundle of ideas [Spinoza, by Schmid]
5045 No machine or mere organised matter could have a unified self [Leibniz]
1356 A person is a unity, and doesn't come in degrees [Reid]
24090 Our inclinations would not conflict if we were a unity; we imagine unity for our multiplicity [Nietzsche]
7152 With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad [Nietzsche]
7130 Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool [Nietzsche]
4536 It is a major blunder to think of consciousness as a unity, and hence as an entity, a thing [Nietzsche]
7108 The eternal truth of 2+2=4 is what gives unity to the mind which regularly thinks it [Sartre]
5792 Explanation of how we unify our mental stimuli into a single experience is the 'binding problem' [Searle]
3480 We experience unity at an instant and across time [Searle]
2957 Brain bisection suggests unity of mind isn't all-or-nothing [Nagel, by Lockwood]
2426 Why are minds homogeneous and brains fine-grained? [Chalmers]
4924 A conscious human being rapidly reunifies its mind after any damage to the brain [Edelman/Tononi]