Combining Texts

Ideas for 'On the Question of Absolute Undecidability', 'works' and 'Philosophy of Mind'

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5 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil]
     Full Idea: Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: If only I knew what a 'quality' was. Do combinations have qualities in addition to the qualities of the components? A pair of trees, a pile of sand, a mass of neurons.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality
How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB]
     Full Idea: Fodor asks the stirring and basic question 'How does anything get outside itself?'
     From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by C.B. Martin - The Mind in Nature 03.6
     A reaction: Is this one of those misconceived questions, like major issues concerning 'what's it like to be?' In what sense am I outside myself? Is a mind any more mysterious than a shadow?
Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that intentional states are exhausted by propositional attitudes, but what about mental imagery? You may have propositional attitudes to food, but I would wager that most of your thoughts about it are imagistic.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: Seems right. If I encounter an object by which I am bewildered, I may form no propositions at all about it, but I can still contemplate the object.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor]
     Full Idea: For Fodor the intentionality of the propositional-attitude vocabulary of our folk psychology is the outward expression of the inward intentionality of the language of the brain.
     From: comment on Jerry A. Fodor (works [1986]) by William Lyons - Approaches to Intentionality p.39
     A reaction: I would be very cautious about this. Folk psychology works, so it must have a genuine basis in how brains work, but it breaks down in unusual situations, and might even be a total (successful) fiction.
The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil]
     Full Idea: The prevailing 'externalist' line on intentionality regards intentional states of mind as owing their content (what they are of, or about) to causal relations agents bear to the world.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This goes back to Putnam's Twin Earth. 'Meanings aren't in the head'. I may defer to experts about what 'elm' means, but I may also be arrogantly wrong about what 'juniper' means.