display all the ideas for this combination of texts
16 ideas
| 4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
| Full Idea: If causal relations boil down to nothing more than regularities (as Hume suggests), then it is a mistake to regard the absence of a mechanism or causal link between mental events and material events as a special problem. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: So critics of Descartes who were baffled by interaction, were actually sniffing Hume's wholesale scepticism about necessary causation. Even so, physical conjunction is more tangible than spiritual conjunction. |
| 4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
| Full Idea: If there are elementary particles, then they are certainly capable of endless interactions beyond those in which they actually engage. Everything points to dispositionality being a fundamental feature of our world. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that my ontology has to include something called a 'disposition'. Dispositions are the consequence of how things are. Are there passive dispositions? |
| 4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Any attempt to say what behaviour follows from a given state of mind can be shown to be false by producing an example in which the state of mind is present but, owing to the addition of new beliefs and desires, the behaviour does not follow. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The objection seems misplaced against eliminative behaviourism, because there are held to be no mental states to correlate with the behavior. There is just behaviour, some times the same, sometimes different. |
| 3192 | Basic logic can be done by syntax, with no semantics [Gödel, by Rey] |
| Full Idea: Gödel in his completeness theorem for first-order logic showed that a certain set of syntactically specifiable rules was adequate to capture all first-order valid arguments. No semantics (e.g. reference, truth, validity) was necessary. | |
| From: report of Kurt Gödel (On Formally Undecidable Propositions [1931]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 8.2 | |
| A reaction: This implies that a logic machine is possible, but we shouldn't raise our hopes for proper rationality. Validity can be shown for purely algebraic arguments, but rationality requires truth as well as validity, and that needs propositions and semantics. |
| 4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Although your heart is a material object, the property of being a heart is, if we accept the functionalist picture, not a material property. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably functional properties are not physical because they are multiply realisable. The property of being a heart is more like a theoretical flow diagram than it is like a muscle. That word 'property' again… |
| 4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
| Full Idea: If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: The problem is not that qualia must be denied, but that there is strong pressure to class them as epiphenomena. However, a raw colour can have a causal role (e.g. in an art gallery). Best to say (with Chalmers?) that functions cause qualia? |
| 4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
| Full Idea: The categories definitive of a given science mark off boundaries that are largely invisible within science at lower levels. That is why there is, in general, no prospect of reducing a higher-level science to a science at some lower level. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds slick, but I am unconvinced. Molecules only exist at the level of chemistry, but they are built up out of physics, and the 'boundaries' could be explained in physics, if you had the knowledge and patience. |
| 4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
| Full Idea: The categories embedded in a higher-level science (psychology, for instance) designate genuine properties of objects, which are not reducible to properties found in sciences at lower levels. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This isn't an argument against reductionism. It is obviously true that someone with a physics degree won't make a good doctor. It's these wretched 'property' things again. Is 'found repulsive by me' a property terrorists? |
| 4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
| Full Idea: 'Property dualism' is the view according to which the mental and the physical are not distinguishable kinds of substance, but distinct families of properties. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2 n) | |
| A reaction: I am struggling to make sense of properties being in distinct families. If it is like smells and colours, it doesn't say much, and if the difference is more profound then it begins to look like old-fashioned dualism in disguise. |
| 4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
| Full Idea: The early identity theorists talked of identifying mental processes with brain processes, but I am now proposing it as a theory about properties. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Since a process is presumably composed of more basic ontological ingredients, this is presumably a good move, but there is still a vagueness about the whole concept of a 'property'. |
| 4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Some have argued that eliminativism about propositional attitudes is self-refuting. If no one believes anything, then how could we believe the eliminativist thesis? | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Sounds slick, but it doesn't strike me as a big problem. Presumably you don't 'believe' eliminativism. You treat some of your brain processes as if they fell into the fictional category of 'belief'. |
| 4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
| Full Idea: The identity theory is preferable to dualism since 1) if mental events are neurological, it is easy to explain causal relations between them, and 2) if we can account for mental phenomena by reference to brains and their properties, we don't need minds. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: One might add that it fits into the overall scientific world, and permits the possible closure of physics. The challenge is that identity theory must 'save the phenomena'. |
| 4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
| Full Idea: The functionalists' point is that higher-level properties like being in pain or computing the sum of 7 and 5 are not to be identified with ("reduced to") or mistaken for their realisers. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: I take it that functionalist minds can't be reduced because they are abstractions rather than physical entities. Nevertheless, the implied ontology seems to be entirely physical, and hence in some sense reductionist. |
| 4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Proponents of multiple realisability regard it as vital to distinguish realised, higher-level properties from their lower-level realisers. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: So that the very idea of 'multiple realisability' begs the question. Minds are private, so it is never clear what has been realised, especially in non-linguistic brains. |
| 4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties; it is the phenomenon of predicates applying to objects in virtue of distinct, though pertinently similar, properties possessed by those objects. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: The analogies for multiple realisability usually involve functions rather than properties or predicates (different types of corkscrew). Pain or belief in danger are not just 'predicates'. |
| 4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Imagine a neuroscientist who is intimately familiar with the physiology of headaches, but who has never actually experienced a headache. | |
| From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: A more realistic version of Frank Jackson's 'Mary'. Doctors need to know that headaches are unpleasant; what they actually feel like seems irrelevant (epiphenomenal). What's it like to only have two pairs of shoes? |