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2 ideas
| 3505 | The function of a heart depends on what we want it to do [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If the only thing that interested us about the heart was that it made a thumping noise, we would have a completely different conception of its "functioning", and correspondingly of heart disease. | |
| From: John Searle (The Rediscovery of the Mind [1992], Ch.10.III) | |
| A reaction: Ditto if we were only interested in ears as support for earrings, but that would seriously miss the point of ears. The intrinsic function is the reason for its existence. |
| 23115 | We have no natural love of mankind, other than through various relationships [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It may be affirm'd, that there is no such passion in human minds, as the love of mankind, merely as such, independent of personal qualities, of services, or of relation to ourself. | |
| From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature, + Appendix [1740], p.481), quoted by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 9.4 | |
| A reaction: Hume says this is for the best. I can't imagine spontaneous love of human beings we have never met. It takes the teachings of some sort of doctrine - religious or political - to produce such an attitude. I see it as a distortion of love. A hijacking. |