Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Letters to Leibniz' and 'The Essential Child'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk essentialism rests on belief in natural kinds, in hidden properties, and on words indicating structures [Gelman]
     Full Idea: The three components of essentialism as a folk belief are the idea that certain categories are natural kinds, the idea that some unobservable property causes the way things are, and the idea that words reflect real structures.
     From: Susan A. Gelman (The Essential Child [2003], 01 'Prelims')
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.