display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 5001 | Maybe we should see intentionality and consciousness as a single problem, not two [Kirk,R] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers today have adopted the view that we can achieve an enormous simplification by reducing the two components of the mind-body problem - intentionality and consciousness - into one; ...consciousness is no more than representations. | |
| From: Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §8.4) | |
| A reaction: One would then see subjective experience and informational content as two consequences of a single mental activity. This strikes me as the correct route to go. We do, after all, learn BY experiencing. Hence concepts are tied in with qualia. |
| 4691 | If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6) | |
| A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it. |
| 4993 | If a bird captures a worm, we could say its behaviour is 'about' the worm [Kirk,R] |
| Full Idea: When a bird pulls a worm from the ground, then swallows it piece by piece, there is a sense in which its behaviour can be said to be about the worm. | |
| From: Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §5.4) | |
| A reaction: This is preparing the ground for a possible behaviourist account of intentionality. Reply: you could say rain is about puddles, or you could say we have adopted Dennett's 'intentional stance' to birds, but it tells us nothing about their psychology. |
| 5000 | Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal [Kirk,R] |
| Full Idea: The conflict over whether intentionality is a matter of behavioural relations with the rest of the world, or of the internal states of the subject, is at its most dramatic in the contrast between behaviourism and the language of thought hypothesis. | |
| From: Robert Kirk (Mind and Body [2003], §7.10) | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe any behaviourist external account of intentionality, which ducks the question of how it all works. Personally I am more drawn to maps and models than to a language of thought. I plan my actions in an imagined space-time world. |