Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Mental Files in Flux' and 'Possibility'

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3 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon]
     Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics.
     From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4
     A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought
Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati]
     Full Idea: People once took indexicality to be exclusively a property of language, ....but a series of examples seemed to establish that the thought expressed by uttering an indexical sentence is itself indexical (and is thus 'essential').
     From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 6.1)
     A reaction: Perry's example of not realising it is him leaking the sugar in a supermarket is the best known example. Was this a key moment for realising that philosophy of thought is (pace Dummett) more important than philosophy of language?
How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati]
     Full Idea: Indexical thoughts create an obvious problem with regard to communication. How can we manage to communicate such thoughts to those who are not in the right context?
     From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1)
     A reaction: One answer is that you often cannot communicate them. If I write on a wall 'I am here now', that doesn't tell the next passer-by very much. But 'it's raining here' said in a telephone call works fine - if you know the location of the caller.