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6 ideas
23311 | Aristotle sees reason as much more specific than our more everyday concept of it [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: It seems that Aristotle does not associate reason primarily with ordinary, everyday thought and reasoning, as we do, but with a much more specific function of reason. | |
From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 980b) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.163 | |
A reaction: Although Aristotle is naturalistic, he is also a bit of a dualist, and so is less keen than I am to connect human reason with sensible behaviour in animals. |
23310 | Animals live by sensations, and some have good memories, but they don't connect experiences [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: By nature animals are born with the faculty of sensation, and from sensation memory is produced in some of them, though not in others; therefore the former are more intelligent. …Animals live by appearances and memories, with little connected experience. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 980a28-) | |
A reaction: I assume that larger animals make judgements, which have to rely on previous experiences, so I think he underestimates the cleverest animals. We now know about Caledonian Crows, which amaze us, and would have amazed Aristotle. |
22420 | The indexical perspective is subjective, incorrigible and constant [McGinn] |
Full Idea: I attribute three properties to the indexical perspective: it is subjective, incorrigible, and constant. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 5) | |
A reaction: That is as good an idea as any for summarising the view (associated with John Perry) that the indexical perspective is an indispensable feature of reality. For a good attack on this, which I favour, see Cappelen and Dever. |
18410 | Indexical thought is in relation to my self-consciousness [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Very roughly, we can say that to think of something indexically is to think of it in relation to me, as I am presented to myself in self-consciousness. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: So it is characterised relationally, which doesn't mean it has a distinctive intrinsic character. If I'm lost, and I overhear someone say 'Peter is in Hazlemere', I get the same relational information (in a different mode) without the indexicality. |
22417 | Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Indexicals are like secondary qualities in not figuring in causal explanations of the interactions of objects: physics omits them not because they are relative and egocentric, but because they do not constitute explanatory predicates of a causal theory. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: They are outside explanatory physics, but not outside explanation. The object moved because a force acted on it; or the object moved because I wanted it moved. |
18402 | Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The present suggestion is that indexical concepts are ineliminable because without them agency would be impossible: when I imagine myself divested of indexical thoughts employing only centreless mental representations, I am deprived of the power to act. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of the view developed by Perry and Lewis. I agree with Cappelen and Dever that it is entirely wrong, and that indexical thought is entirely eliminable, and nothing special. |