Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'The Metaphysics of Properties' and 'The View from Nowhere'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / c. Animal rationality
Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial'
     A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / i. Conceptual priority
Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver]
     Full Idea: I find the notion of conceptual priority barely intelligible.
     From: Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §19 n48)
     A reaction: I don't think I agree, though there is a lot of vagueness and intuition involved, and not a lot of hard argument. Can you derive A from B, but not B from A? Is A inconceivable without B, but B conceivable without A?