Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Scattered Objects' and 'Virtues of the Mind'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / d. Emotional feeling
The feeling accompanying curiosity is neither pleasant nor painful [Zagzebski]
     Full Idea: Most feelings are experienced as pleasant or painful, but it is not evident that they all are; curiosity may be one that is not. [note: 'curiosity' may not be the name of a feeling, but a feeling typically accompanies it]
     From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1)
     A reaction: If a machine generates a sliding scale from pain to pleasure, is there a neutral feeling at the midpoint, or does all feeling briefly vanish there? Not sure.
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.