display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: Thought is only a capacity to feel, and the rational soul is only the sensitive soul applied to the contemplation of ideas and to reasoning. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.33) | |
A reaction: What a very nice idea. La Mettrie wants to bring us closer to animals. Because we can pursue a train of rational thought, it does not follow that we have a faculty called 'rationality'. A dog can follow a clever series of clues that lead to food. |
18409 | Indexicals apply to singular thought, and mental files have essentially indexical features [Recanati] |
Full Idea: I defend the applicability of the indexical model to singular thought, and to mental files qua vehicles of singular thought. Mental files, I will argue, possess the essential features of indexicals. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 05.1) | |
A reaction: I love mental files, but am now (thanks to Cappelen and Dever) deeply averse to giving great significance to indexicals. A revised account of files will be needed. |
16354 | Indexicality is closely related to singularity, exploiting our direct relations with things [Recanati] |
Full Idea: Singularity and indexicality are closely related: for indexicals systematically exploit the contextual relations in which we stand to what we talk about. | |
From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Recanati builds a nice case that we may only have an ontology of singular objects because we conceptualise and refer to things in a particular way. He denies the ontology, but that's the bit that interests me. |