Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy' and 'Centring'

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2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / a. Other minds
Neglect your self, and feel the consciousness of each other being [Anon (Cent)]
     Full Idea: Feel the consciousness of each person as your own consciousness. So, leaving aside concern for self, become each being.
     From: Anon (Cent) (Centring [c.500 BCE], 83)
     A reaction: Good. The western scepticism about other minds puts up a barrier to this sort of thought. The best of Zen is when it encourages the use of imagination to explore what is real. But imagination struggles to distinguish what is true.
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.