Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Thoughts without Laws' and 'works'

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5 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge

5991	For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code]
	Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive.
	From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle
	A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

19332	For Leibniz, divine understanding grasps every conceivable possibility [Leibniz, by Perkins]
	Full Idea: For Leibniz, what is this understanding which God has? What does it contain? All possibilities in all possible combinations, that is, everything which can be conceived.
	From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III
	A reaction: I like this, because it strikes me as essential that understanding should embrace possibilities as well as actualities. Perkins points out that the possibilities are restricted by an awareness of the limitations imposed by combination.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs

12582	The function of beliefs is to produce beliefs-that-p when p [Millikan]
	Full Idea: Presumably it is a proper function of the belief-manufacturing mechanisms in John to produce beliefs-that-p only if and when p.
	From: Ruth Garrett Millikan (Thoughts without Laws [1986], p.69), quoted by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 5.2
	A reaction: This is the 'teleological' account of belief, which is trying to fit belief into an evolutionary view of humans. It is doubtful whether you can say mental states are just their 'proper' function, because then piano-playing becomes a puzzle.

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism

5509	Leibniz said dualism of mind and body is illusion, and there is only mind [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi]
	Full Idea: Leibniz held that dualism of mind and body is an illusion and that both are really the same thing, and that this thing is mind.
	From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.22
	A reaction: I am puzzled by this, as Leibniz is famous for the view that mind and body are parallel. See idea 5038, and also 2109 and 2596. Monads are, of course, entirely mental, and are the building blocks of reality. Clearly I (and you) must read more Leibniz.

7568	Leibniz is an idealist insofar as the basic components of his universe are all mental [Leibniz, by Jolley]
	Full Idea: To say that Leibniz is an idealist is to say that simple substances, the basic building-blocks of the universe, are all mental or at least quasi-mental in nature
	From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.3
	A reaction: This is a bit different from the Berkelian type of idealism, which says that reality consists entirely of events within thinking minds. Is a monad the thinker or the thought?