12 ideas
| 2546 | Philosophy is a magnificent failure in its attempt to overstep the limits of our knowledge [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy marks the limits of human theoretical intelligence. Philosophy is an attempt to overstep our cognitive bounds, a kind of magnificent failure. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.209) | |
| A reaction: No one attempts to overstep boundaries once they are confirmed as such. The magnificent attempts persist because failure is impossible to demonstrate (except, perhaps, by Gödel's Theorem). |
| 2544 | Thoughts have a dual aspect: as they seem to introspection, and their underlying logical reality [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Our thoughts have a kind of duality, corresponding to their surface appearance to introspection and their underlying logical reality. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.147) |
| 17945 | Forms are not a theory of universals, but an attempt to explain how predication is possible [Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: The theory of Forms is not a theory of universals but a first attempt to explain how predication, the application of a single term to many objects - now considered one of the most elementary operations of language - is possible. | |
| From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xxvii) |
| 17946 | Only Tallness really is tall, and other inferior tall things merely participate in the tallness [Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: Only Tallness and nothing else really is tall; everything else merely participates in the Forms and, being excluded from the realm of Being, belongs to the inferior world of Becoming. | |
| From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xxviii) | |
| A reaction: This is just as weird as the normal view (and puzzle of participation), but at least it makes more sense of 'metachein' (partaking). |
| 17944 | 'Episteme' is better translated as 'understanding' than as 'knowledge' [Nehamas] |
| Full Idea: The Greek 'episteme' is usually translated as 'knowledge' but, I argue, closer to our notion of understanding. | |
| From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xvi) | |
| A reaction: He agrees with Julia Annas on this. I take it to be crucial. See the first sentence of Aristotle's 'Metaphysics'. It is explanation which leads to understanding. |
| 2539 | Mental modules for language, social, action, theory, space, emotion [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The prevailing view in cognitive psychology is that the mind consists of separate faculties, each with a certain cognitive task: linguistic, social, practical, theoretical, abstract, spatial and emotional. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.40) | |
| A reaction: 'Faculties' are not quite the same as 'modules', and this list mostly involves more higher-order activities than a modules list (e.g. Idea 2495). The idea that emotion is a 'faculty' sounds old-fashioned. |
| 2545 | Free will is mental causation in action [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Free will is mental causation in action. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.167) |
| 2543 | Brains aren't made of anything special, suggesting panpsychism [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: All matter must contain the potential to underlie consciousness, since there is nothing special about the matter that composes brain tissue. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.100) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me one of the most basic assumptions which we should all make about the mind. The mind is made of the brain, and the brain is made of food. However, there must be something 'special' about the brain. |
| 2540 | Examining mind sees no brain; examining brain sees no mind [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: You can look into your mind until you burst and not discover neurons and synapses, and you can stare at someone's brain from dawn till dusk and not perceive the consciousness that is so apparent to the person whose brain it is. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.47) | |
| A reaction: This is a striking symmetry of ignorance, though hardly enough to justify McGinn's pessimism about understanding the mind. 'When you are in the grass you can't see the whole of England; if you can see the whole of England, you won't see the grass'. |
| 2547 | There is information if there are symbols which refer, and which can combine into a truth or falsehood [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: There is information in a system if there are symbols in it that refer to things and that together form strings that can be true or false. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.225) | |
| A reaction: We can also directly apprehend information by perception. Are facts identical with correct information? Can a universal generalisation be information? |
| 21996 | Freedom only comes when labour is no longer necessary [Marx] |
| Full Idea: The realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases. | |
| From: Karl Marx (Capital Vol. 3 [1873], p.496), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 8 | |
| A reaction: This is a bit discouraging fo idealistic dreamers. Modern political thought needs an ecological dimension to this problem. If society always needs a fair degree of labour, there must be a way to maximise freedom in that context. |
| 2542 | Causation in the material world is energy-transfer, of motion, electricity or gravity [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Causation in the material world works by energy transfer of some sort: transfer of motion, of electrical energy, of gravitational force. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.92) |