Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'The Idea of Overlapping Consensus' and 'Ordinatio'

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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 / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
A universal is the result of abstraction, which is only a kind of mental picturing [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: A universal is not the result of generation, but of abstraction, which is only a kind of mental picturing.
     From: William of Ockham (Ordinatio [1320], DII Qviii prima redactio)
     A reaction: The phrase 'mental picturing' works very plausibly for the universal 'giraffe', but not so well for 'multiplication' or 'contradiction'. Though we might broaden 'picturing' to being a much less visual concept. Mapping seems basic.