Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths?' and 'The Question of Realism'

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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 / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts
A concept is a way of thinking of things or kinds, whether or not they exist [Lowe]
     Full Idea: The nearest I can get to a quick definition is to say that a concept is a way of thinking of some thing or kind of things, whether or not a really existent thing or kind of things.
     From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 2)
     A reaction: The focus on 'things' seems rather narrow. Are relations things? He makes concepts sound adverbial, so that there is thinking going on, and then we add 'ways' of doing it. Thinking depends on concepts, not concepts on thinking.