Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Metaphysics', 'Reply to Fifth Objections' and 'The Varieties of Reference'

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11 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality
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.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / c. Animal rationality
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.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files
11245 Many memories make up a single experience [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Many recollections of the same thing perform the function of a single experience.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0980b28)
     A reaction: This beautifully simple remark seems to me to be extremely important if we are going to understand the nature of thought. Personally I think it endorses the 'database' view of how the mind works (as a set of labelled 'files'). See Fodor's 'LOT2'.
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
23794 Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte]
     Full Idea: Evans introduced the idea that there are some representational states, for example perceptual experiences, which have content that is nonconceptual.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 3.4
     A reaction: McDowell famously disagree, and whether all experience is inherently conceptualised is a main debate from that period. Hard to see how it could be settled, but I incline to McDowell, because minimal perception hardly counts as 'experience'.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts
16366 The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans]
     Full Idea: If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'.
     From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3
     A reaction: Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
3631 A blind man may still contain the idea of colour [Descartes]
     Full Idea: How do you know that there is no idea of colour in a man born blind?
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Fifth Objections [1641], 363)
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
12575 Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them [Evans, by Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Evans's 'Generality Constraint' says that if a thinker is capable of attitudes to the content Fa and possesses the singular concept b, then he is capable of having attitudes to the content Fb.
     From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 4.3) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.1
     A reaction: So having an attitude becomes the test of whether one possesses a concept. I suppose if one says 'You know you've got a concept when you are capable of thinking about it', that is much the same thing. Sounds fine.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / i. Conceptual priority
10954 It is unclear whether acute angles are prior to right angles, or fingers to men [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Suppose parts are prior to the whole - then, since the acute angle is a part of the right angle, and a finger is part of an animal, this would mean the acute angle and the finger were prior, but received opinion says otherwise.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1034b24)
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 3. Abstracta by Ignoring
9792 Mathematicians study quantity and continuity, and remove the perceptible features of things [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The mathematician conducts a study into things in abstraction (after the removal of all perceptible features, such as weight and hardness, leaving only quantity and continuity).
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1061a26)
     A reaction: Frege complained that there is nothing left if you remove the perceptible features, but clearly Aristotle is not an empiricist in this passage, and it is doubtful if even Mill can be totally empirical in his account. We have relations of ideas.
9077 Mathematicians suppose inseparable aspects to be separable, and study them in isolation [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Study things as mathematicians do. Suppose what is not separable to be separable. A man qua man is an indivisible unity, so the arithmetician supposes a man to be an indivisible unity, and investigates the accidental features of man qua indivisible.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1078a19)
     A reaction: This is the abstractionist view of mathematics. Qua indivisible, a man will have the same properties as a toothbrush. Aristotle clearly intends the method for scientists as well. It strikes me as common sense, but there is a lot of modern caution.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 8. Abstractionism Critique
9075 If health happened to be white, the science of health would not study whiteness [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If we have a science of the healthy, and the healthy happens to be white, the science of the healthy does not deal with the white.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1077b30)
     A reaction: Given this point, we certainly cannot think of Aristotle as believing in simple abstractionism. The problem of the coextension of renates and cordates looms here (Idea 7317). 'Relevant' similarities require extensive cross-referencing.