Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Clitophon', 'Confessions' and 'Treatise of Human Nature, Appendix'

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2 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine]
     Full Idea: The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08)
     A reaction: He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance
Hume needs a notion which includes degrees of resemblance [Shoemaker on Hume]
     Full Idea: Hume needs a notion of resemblance where some things resemble a given thing more than other things do, and some may resemble exactly, and some hardly at all.
     From: comment on David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causality and Properties §02
     A reaction: An astute and simple point. Once you admit degrees of resemblance, of course, then resemblance probably ceases to be a primitive concept in your system, and Hume would be well stuck.