display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
7010 | Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil] |
Full Idea: Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is a view with which I am sympathetic, though I am not sure if it explains anything. It would be necessary to identify a disposition of basic matter that could be built up into the disposition of a brain to think about things. |
7054 | Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil] |
Full Idea: Nowadays philosophers concerned with intentionality divide into two camps. Internalists epitomise a traditional approach to thought, as intrinsic features of thinkers; externalists say it depends on contextual factors (environment or community). | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.2) | |
A reaction: This is basic to understanding modern debates (those that grow out of Putnam's Twin Earth). Externalism is fashionable, but I am reluctant to shake off my quaint internalism. Start by separating strict and literal meaning from speaker's meaning. |
7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
Full Idea: Properties of conscious experience, the so-called qualia, are not dangling appendages to material states and processes but intrinsic ingredients of those states and processes. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: Personally I am inclined to the view that qualia are intrinsic to the processes and NOT to the 'states'. Heil must be right, though. I am sure qualia are not just epiphenomena - they are too useful. |
9102 | If an animal approached from a distance, we might abstract 'animal' from one instance [William of Ockham] |
Full Idea: It seems possible that the concept of a genus could be abstracted from one individual, let us say, the concept 'animal', as in the case of one approaching from a distance, when I see enough to judge that I am seeing an animal. | |
From: William of Ockham (Seven Quodlibets [1332], I Q xiii) | |
A reaction: This is a rather individualistic view of abstraction, ignoring the shared language and culture. It is hard to imagine a truly virgin mind coming up with the concept after one encounter. The concept 'mind-boggling' seems more likely. |