Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Elm and the Expert' and 'Ethical Studies'

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3 ideas

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor]
     Full Idea: The Cartesian view is that the interaction problem does arise, but is unsolvable because interaction is miraculous.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4)
     A reaction: A rather unsympathetic statement of the position. Cartesians might think that God could explain to us how interaction works. Cartesians are not mysterians, I think, but they see no sign of any theory of interaction.
Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor]
     Full Idea: The question how mental representations could be both semantic, like propositions, and causal, like rocks, trees, and neural firings, is arguably just the interaction problem all over again.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4)
     A reaction: Interesting way of presenting the problem. If you seem to be confronting the interaction problem, you have probably drifted into a bogus dualist way of thinking. Retreat, and reformulate you questions and conceptual apparatus, till the question vanishes.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism
Wisdom and thought are shared by all things [Empedocles]
     Full Idea: Wisdom and power of thought, know thou, are shared in by all things.
     From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) II.286
     A reaction: Sextus quotes this, saying that it is 'still more paradoxical', and that it explicitly includes plants. This may mean that Empedocles was not including inanimate matter.