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2 ideas
| 23300 | 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. |
| 7531 | We don't assert private thoughts; the objects are part of what we assert [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I believe Mont Blanc itself is a component part of what is actually asserted in the proposition 'Mont Blanc is more than 4000 metres high'; we do not assert the thought, which is a private psychological matter, but the object of the thought. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Letters to Frege [1902], 1904.12.12), quoted by Ray Monk - Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: This would appear to be pretty much externalism about concepts, given that Russell would accept that other people know much more about Mont Blanc than he does, and their knowledge is included in what he asserts. |