Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Existence,Ontological Commitment and Fictions' and 'What is Philosophy?'

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3 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 / 6. Broad Content
Phenomenology says thought is part of the world [Deleuze/Guattari]
     Full Idea: According to phenomenology, thought depends on man's relations with the world - with which the brain is necessarily in agreement because it is drawn from these relations.
     From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], Conclusion)
     A reaction: The development of externalist views of mind, arising from the Twin Earth idea, seems to provide a link to continental philosophy, where similar ideas are found in Husserl, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. So study science, psychology, or sociology?
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts
The logical attitude tries to turn concepts into functions, when they are really forms or forces [Deleuze/Guattari]
     Full Idea: Logic is reductionist not accidentally, but essentially and necessarily: following the route marked out by Frege and Russell, it wants to turn the concept into a function (...when actually a concept is a form, or a force).
     From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 2.6)
     A reaction: [Last part on p.144] I'm not sure that I understand 'form or force', but the idea that concepts are mere functions is like describing something as 'transport', without saying whether it is bus/bike/train.. Is a concept a vision, or a tool?