Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'When Does a Life Begin?' and 'A Slim Book about Narrow Content'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions
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.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal]
     Full Idea: Commonsense psychology is a powerful explanatory theory, and largely correct, but it seems to be profoundly dualist, and treats minds as immaterial spirits which can transmigrate and exist disembodied.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2)
     A reaction: Fans of folk psychology tend to focus on central normal experience, but folk psychology also seems to range from quirky to barking mad. A 'premonition' is a widely accepted mental event.