display all the ideas for this combination of texts
13 ideas
| 5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: We only have a sense of our self as continuous, but not as exactly the same. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.178) | |
| A reaction: Russell said this too, and it seems to me to be right. Personal identity is far too imprecise for me to assert that I remember my ten-year-old self as being identical to me now. Only physical objects like teddy bears can pass that test. |
| 5266 | It would seem that the thinking part is the individual self [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It would seem that the thinking part is, or most nearly is, the individual self. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1166a25) | |
| A reaction: It seems that where Socrates identifies the self with the whole of the psuché (and hence is interested in its immortality, in 'Phaedo'), Aristotle considers the self to be merely the thinking and rational part of the psuché. |
| 5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The self is an abstraction from the story of a person's life that isolates and magnifies the experiences, traits and aspirations that are assigned importance. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.240) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am inclined to see personal identity as the central controller of brain activity, the aspect of the biological machine which keeps all the mental events focused on what matters, which is health, safety and happiness. |
| 5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It is a bad mistake to think we are born with a self; the self develops, and acquiring it requires living in the world. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.260) | |
| A reaction: I think this is wrong. He is mistaking a complex cultural concept of the self as the subject for autobiography etc. for the basic biological self which even small animals must have if their brains are to serve any useful purpose in their lives. |
| 5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: According to Buddhism, the idea of a permanent, constant self is an illusion, and a morally dangerous one. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.161) | |
| A reaction: We are familiar with the idea that it might be an illusion, but I am unconvinced by 'morally dangerous'. If you drop both free will and personal identity, I can't see any sort of focus for moral life left, but I am willing to be convinced. |
| 8007 | Aristotle never discusses free will [Aristotle, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle never gets involved in the riddles of later philosophers about free will. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Note that this is a very great philosopher who was intensely interested in the well-springs of human action. 'Free will' never crossed his mind. This is because free will is nonsense. Owen Flanagan is best on this subject (Ideas 5345 and 5332). |
| 12961 | For an action to be 'free', it must be deliberate as well as unconstrained [Aristotle, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle has rightly noted that we are not prepared to call an action 'free' unless as well as being unconstrained it is also deliberate. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1111b06) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 2.21 | |
| A reaction: This is quite an important message for David Hume. I love the respect which Leibniz accords Aristotle, at a time when he was becoming thoroughly unfashionable. This is the nearest Aristotle gets to discussing so-called 'free will'. |
| 4118 | A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A human being fathers his own actions as he fathers his children. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1113b18) | |
| A reaction: Ultimately Aristotle believes that free will is an absolute fact, once influences are stripped away. He should have questioned more deeply. |
| 5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: The standard view of free will is that I have something like complete control over what I do. A stronger view (not widely held) is that I also have complete control over what I think and what I feel. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 60n) | |
| A reaction: To claim free control of feelings looks optimistic, but it does look as if we can decide to think about something, such as a philosophical problem. Deciding what to say comes somewhere between thought and action. |
| 5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Free will is said to give us self-control, self-expression, individuality, reasons-sensitivity, rational deliberation, rational accountability, moral accountability, the capacity to do otherwise, unpredictability, and political freedom. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.104) | |
| A reaction: Nice list. His obvious challenge is to either say we can live happily without some of these things, or else show how we can have them without 'free will'. Personally I agree with Flanagan that we meet the challenge. |
| 20192 | Aristotle assesses whether people are responsible, and if they are it was voluntary [Aristotle, by Zagzebski] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle makes the concept of moral responsibility more fundamental than the concept of the voluntary, the reverse of the typical contemporary approach. Given that we hold persons responsible, such acts must be voluntary. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1110-ish) by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind 4.2 | |
| A reaction: Good for Aristotle. Whether we hold people responsible or not is widely understood, but whether they are 'free' to act is obscure, and may even be incoherent. We should look at praise and blame, and (above all) excuses. |
| 5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Most people believe we have free will, and that this consists in the ability to circumvent natural law. The trouble is that the only device ever philosophically invented that can do this sort of job is an incorporeal soul or mind. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right. We currently have a western world full of people who have rejected dualism, but still cling on to free will, because they think morality depends on it. I think morality depends on personal identity, but not on free will. |
| 5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: It is unimaginable to me that, despite the feeling that we control what we do, such a strong conception of ourselves as unmoved movers would have been added to our self-image unless we had first conceived of God along these lines. | |
| From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.107) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right, though there are signs in fifth century Greece of contradictory evidence. The 'unmoved mover' seems unformulated before Plato's 'Laws' (idea 1423), but there is an implied belief in free will a hundred years earlier. |