Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Problem of the Soul', 'Semantic Relationism' and 'Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: In the seventeenth century the dominant idea that causation is collisionlike made mental causation almost impossible to envision.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.136)
     A reaction: Interesting. This makes Descartes' interaction theory look rather bold, and Leibniz's and Malebranche's rejection of it understandable. Personally I still think of causation as collisionlike, except that the collisions are of very very tiny objects.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: It is plain that other minds have an existence exterior to my mind, since I find them by experience to be independent of it.
     From: George Berkeley (Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous [1713], III p.220)
     A reaction: This is a surprising claim from Berkeley. If trees only exist through their experience in my mind, why don't other minds exist in the same way?