display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
| 5962 | Plato says the soul is ordered by number [Plato, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Plato regards the substance of soul not as number but as being ordered by number. | |
| From: report of Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE]) by Plutarch - 68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' 1023 | |
| A reaction: This remark points towards Plato's esoteric doctrines, which are some sort of mathematical metaphysics. The idea that order and numbers are in some way connected is one of the most powerful in western civilization, with undeniable appeal. |
| 24244 | The soul is a complex mixture of pure mind and changing matter [Plato] |
| Full Idea: To create the soul the god combined two kinds of substance - one indivisible and never changing, the other the divided and created substance of the physical world - with intermediates between them, and then a homogeneous mixture. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 35a) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this does not imply simple mind-matter dualism, but includes bridging intermediates, ending in what seems to be a continuum between physical and mental. Not to be taken too seriously, though. Plato admits it is all speculation. |
| 24258 | The gods placed the mortal soul in the chest [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The gods bound the mortal soul within the chest - the thorax, as it is called. | |
| From: Plato (Timaeus [c.362 BCE], 69e) | |
| A reaction: Timaeus recognises the importance of the head, and the fact that the main senses pass into the brain, but they had no indication of where thought and reason occur. |
| 4894 | I say Mary does not have new knowledge, but knows an old fact in a new way [Perry on Jackson] |
| Full Idea: I say Mary knows an old fact in a new way, but I do not find a new bit of knowledge and a new fact. | |
| From: comment on Frank Jackson (What Mary Didn't Know [1986]) by John Perry - Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness §7.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems roughly the right way to attack Jackson's 'knowledge argument', by asking exactly what he means by 'knowledge'. It is hard to see how 'qualia' can be both the means of acquiring knowledge, and the thing itself. |
| 4895 | Is it unfair that physicalist knowledge can be written down, but dualist knowledge can't be [Perry on Jackson] |
| Full Idea: Jackson seems to imply that it isn't fair that all physicalist knowledge can be written down, but not all dualist knowledge can be. | |
| From: comment on Frank Jackson (What Mary Didn't Know [1986]) by John Perry - Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness §7.5 | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints a problem for the 'Mary' example - that Mary's new sight of colour is claimed as 'knowledge', and yet the whole point is that it cannot be expressed in propositions (which seems to leave it as 'procedural' or 'acquaintance' knowledge). |
| 4886 | Mary knows all the physical facts of seeing red, but experiencing it is new knowledge [Jackson] |
| Full Idea: Mary knows all the physical facts. ..It seems, however, that Mary does not know all there is to know. For when she is let out of the black and white room .. she will learn what it is like to see something red. | |
| From: Frank Jackson (What Mary Didn't Know [1986], §1.4) | |
| A reaction: Jackson is begging the question. A new physical event occurs when the red wavelength stimulates Mary's visual cortex for the first time. For an empiricist raw experience creates knowledge, so it can't BE knowledge. Does Mary acquire a new concept? |