Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Lectures 1930-32 (student notes)' and 'Truth-making without Truth-makers'

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 / 1. Thought
Thought is an activity which we perform by the expression of it [Wittgenstein]
     Full Idea: Thought is an activity which we perform by the expression of it, and lasts as long as the expression.
     From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Lectures 1930-32 (student notes) [1931], B VIII)
     A reaction: I take this to be an outmoded view of thought, which modern cognitive science has undermined, by showing how little of our thinking is actually conscious.
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.