display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
3368 | Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim] |
Full Idea: It is generally held that there are two broad categories of mental phenomena - qualitative states and intentional states (but what do they have in common?). | |
From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 23) | |
A reaction: I am happy to accept this orthodox modern analysis. Putting it more simply: minds exist to enable experience and thought. I judge a priori that the two aspects are not separate. Qualia exist to serve thought, and qualia are necessary for thought. |
3392 | Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers [Kim] |
Full Idea: Unless mental properties have causal powers, there would be little point in worrying about them. | |
From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.118) | |
A reaction: This doesn't, on its own, actually rule out epiphenomenalism, but it does show why it barely qualifies as a serious theory. One might, in fact, say that we simply can't worry about something which has no causal powers. The powers might not be physical… |
3397 | Beliefs cause other beliefs [Kim] |
Full Idea: A brief reflection makes it evident that most of our beliefs are generated by other beliefs we hold, and "generation" here could only mean causal generation. | |
From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.128) | |
A reaction: This seems right, and yet implies an uncomfortable determinism, as if all our beliefs just happened to us. I don't claim proper free will, but I do say there is an element in belief formation which is just caused by bunches of beliefs. Call it character. |
3396 | Experiment requires mental causation [Kim] |
Full Idea: Experimentation presupposes mental-to-physical causation and is impossible without it. | |
From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.128) | |
A reaction: So an epiphenomenalist can't do experiments? Kim implies that there is some special mental assessment of the feedback from physical events, but presumably a robot or a zombie could do experiments. Spiders do experiments. |
1875 | 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. |