Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis' and 'The Passions of the Soul'

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5 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions
For Descartes passions are God-given preservers of the mind-body union [Descartes, by Taylor,C]
     Full Idea: Descartes sees passions not as opinions, but as functional devices that the Creator has designed for us to help preserve the body-soul substantial union.
     From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §8
     A reaction: I wonder what Descartes would have made of the theory of evolution?
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / e. Basic emotions
Are there a few primary passions (say, joy, sadness and desire)? [Descartes, by Cottingham]
     Full Idea: Descartes says there are six primary passions (wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness); Spinoza says there are just three (joy, sadness and desire).
     From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by John Cottingham - The Rationalists p.172
     A reaction: A dubious project. However, it is now agreed that there are a few (six?) basic universal facial expressions, to which these passions may correspond.
There are six primitive passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness [Descartes, by Goldie]
     Full Idea: Descartes said there are six primitive passions, namely wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. The others are either species of these, or composed of them.
     From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649], 353) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Evidence'
     A reaction: [not sure about ref] It's a nice touch to add 'wonder', which doesn't make it onto anyone else's list.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 5. Concepts and Language / b. Concepts are linguistic
Concepts are language [Quine]
     Full Idea: Concepts are language.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)
     A reaction: Hm. This seems to mean that animals and pre-linguistic children have no concepts. I just don't believe that.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 1. Abstract Thought
Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine]
     Full Idea: Applying the operator '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, we get second-level abstract singular terms.
     From: Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)
     A reaction: This is the derivation of abstract concepts by naming classes, rather than by deriving equivalence classes. Any theory which doesn't allow multi-level abstraction is self-evidently hopeless. Quine says Frege and Russell get numbers this way.