Combining Texts

Ideas for 'A Study of Concepts', 'Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology' and 'Against the Ethicists (one book)'

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3 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet]
     Full Idea: Another person's consciousness is given to me through the expressive stratum of her body, which gives me access to her experience while making me realise that it is inaccessible to me. Empathy is a presentation of what is absent.
     From: report of Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913]) by Rudolf Bernet - Husserl p.203
     A reaction: This is the phenomenological approach to the problem of other minds, by examining the raw experience of encountering another person. It is true that we seem to both know and not know another person's mind when we encounter them.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness
Pure consciousness is a sealed off system of actual Being [Husserl]
     Full Idea: Consciousness, considered in its 'purity', must be reckoned as a self-contained system of Being, a system of actual Being, into which nothing can penetrate, and from which nothing can escape.
     From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.049)
     A reaction: Recorded without comment, to show that among phenomenologists there is a way of thinking about consciousness which is a long way from analytic discussions of the topic.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
Consciousness of a belief isn't a belief that one has it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: I dispute the view that consciousness of a belief consists in some kind of belief that one has the belief.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.2)
     A reaction: Thus if one is trying to grasp the notion of higher-order thought, it doesn't have to be just more of same but one level up. Any sensible view of the brain would suggest that one sort of activity would lead into an entirely different sort.