Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Confessions', 'LOT 2' and 'Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed'

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3 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Mental states have causal powers [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Mental states have causal powers.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.2.3)
     A reaction: I quote this because it gives you the link between a general account of causal powers as basic to reality, and an active account of what the mind is. It has to be a key link in a decent modern unified account of the world. See Idea 12638.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine]
     Full Idea: The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08)
     A reaction: He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance
The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor]
     Full Idea: The ways in which different kinds of thing are similar to one another aren't, in general, similar to one another.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (LOT 2 [2008], Ch.5.4)
     A reaction: Nice, but I think one would say that they lack similarity at the level of primary thought, but have obvious similarity (as concept-connectors) at the level of meta-thought.