Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Contingent Identity' and 'A Short History of Ethics'

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2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
When Aristotle speaks of soul he means something like personality [MacIntyre]
     Full Idea: When Aristotle speaks of the soul we could very often retain his meaning by speaking of personality.
     From: Alasdair MacIntyre (A Short History of Ethics [1967], Ch. 7)
     A reaction: MacIntyre contrasts this strongly with Plato's dualist view. Famously Aristotle thinks the soul is the 'form' of the body, but this implies that he also includes the higher-level functions of the body. Soul is character?
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 7. Animal Minds
Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: A dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without pausing to smell.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.69
     A reaction: As we might say: either A or B or C; not A; not B; therefore C. I wouldn't want to trust this observation without a lot of analysis of slow-motion photography of dogs as crossroads. Even so, it is a nice challenge to Descartes' view of animals.