display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
2318 | Agency, knowledge, reason, memory, psychology all need mental causes [Kim, by PG] |
Full Idea: The following all require a belief in mental causation: agency (mind causes events), knowledge (perception causes beliefs), reasoning (one belief causes another), memory (events cause ideas), psychology (science of mental causes). | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §2 p.031) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: A very good list, which I cannot fault, and to which I cannot add. The question is: is there any mental activity left over which does NOT require causation? Candidates are free will, and the contingent character of qualia. I say the answer is, no. |
6481 | If intentional states are intrinsically about other things, what are their own properties? [Robinson,H] |
Full Idea: Intentional states are mysterious things; if they are intrinsically about other things, what properties, if any, do they possess intrinsically? | |
From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
A reaction: A very nice question, which I suspect to be right at the heart of the tendency towards externalist accounts of the mind. Since you can only talk about the contents of the thoughts, you can't put forward a decent internalist account of what is going on. |
2325 | It seems impossible that an exact physical copy of this world could lack intentionality [Kim] |
Full Idea: It seems to me inconceivable that a possible world exists that is an exact physical duplicate of this world but lacking wholly in intentionality. | |
From: Jaegwon Kim (Mind in a Physical World [1998], §4 p.101) | |
A reaction: Personally I can't conceive of such a world lacking qualia either. The physical entails the mental, say I. |