Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On Political Reactions' and 'Treatise of Human Nature'

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2 ideas

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.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Memory, senses and understanding are all founded on the imagination [Hume]
     Full Idea: The memory, senses, and understanding are all of them founded on the imagination, or the vivacity of our ideas.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.7.3), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 5
     A reaction: He seems to have in mind his theory of associations, which are not rational.