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3 ideas
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin] |
Full Idea: Fodor and Jackendorff argue that since the internal language of thought, or conceptual structure, has to be more or less the same for all people, of whatever language, it will surely be something like logical form. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.8 | |
A reaction: The discovery (by, e.g., Frege and Russell) that there is something called 'logical form', which we can track down and represent in precise and fairly unambiguous symbolism, may be one of the greatest of all human discoveries. Perhaps. |
11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence] |
Full Idea: Fodor argues that virtually all lexical concepts are innate, because most models of learning treat concept-learning as hypothesis testing, but that invariably employs the very concept to be learned. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by E Margolis/S Laurence - Concepts 3.3 | |
A reaction: The obvious response is to reject the theory which gave rise to this difficulty. I take concept formation to be a fairly mechanical and barely conscious response to environment, not a process of fully rational and conscious hypothesising. |