Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Natural Minds' and 'The Wanderer and his Shadow'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


3 ideas

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes
The end need not be the goal, as in the playing of a melody (and yet it must be completed) [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Not every end is the goal; the end of a melody is not its goal; and yet: as long as the melody has not reached its end, it also hasn't reached its goal. A parable.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Wanderer and his Shadow [1880], §204)
     A reaction: A nice message for Aristotle, that there is no simple separation of ends and means.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 3. Natural Function
A mummified heart has the teleological function of circulating blood [Polger]
     Full Idea: A preserved heart in a jar of formaldehyde has the teleological function of circulating blood.
     From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], §5.4)
     A reaction: A nice illustration.
Teleological notions of function say what a thing is supposed to do [Polger]
     Full Idea: Teleological notions of function specify not just what a thing happens to do, but what it is supposed to do.
     From: Thomas W. Polger (Natural Minds [2004], Ch.5.3)
     A reaction: This is the basis of a distinct theory of the mind. It seems to be akin to the 'dispositions' of behaviourism, so that the mind becomes once more a theoretical and abstract entity, rather than a thing of occurrent events and processes.