Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Against Liberalism' and 'An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation'

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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 / C. Content / 8. Intension
Extension is the class of things, intension is the correct definition of the thing, and intension determines extension [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: "The denotation or extension of a term is the class of all actual or existent things which the term correctly applies to or names; the connotation or intension of a term is delimited by any correct definition of it." ..And intension determines extension.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946]), quoted by Stephen P. Schwartz - Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds §II
     A reaction: The last part is one of the big ideas in philosophy of language, which was rejected by Putnam and co. If you were to reverse the slogan, though, (to extension determines intension) how would you identify the members of the extension?