33 ideas
16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Esoteric metaphysics appeals to those, I conjecture, who deep down hold that philosophy is the queen of sciences after all, since it investigates what the world is REALLY like. | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: He mentions Kit Fine and Jonathan Schaffer as esoteric metaphysicians. I see a pyramid of increasing generality and abstraction, with metaphysics at the top. This doesn't make it 'queen', though, because uncertainties multiply higher up. |
16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Material science has found that some features of metals make them more susceptible to corrosion but more resistant to fracture. Thus this immediately implies that there are features, i.e. properties. What is left for metaphysics to do? | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Presumably economists have discovered 'features' of economies that cause unemployment, and literary critics have discovered 'features' of novels that make them good. |
3005 | 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If the concept 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from the concept 'Oedipus's mother', that's all right because the two concepts are connected with different properties. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 84) |
16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
Full Idea: The inferential role of the existential quantifier in first order logic does not carry over to the existential quantifier in English (we have empty names, singular terms that are not even in the business of denoting, and so on). | |
From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) |
7014 | A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor] |
Full Idea: 'Is a particle and my coin is heads' and 'is a particle and my coin is tails' are perfectly well defined predicates and they pick out perfectly well defined (relational) properties of physical particles. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: (Somewhat paraphrased). This is a very nice offering for the case that all predicates are properties, and hence that 'properties' is an entirely conventional category. It strikes me as self-evident that Fodor is not picking out 'natural' properties. |
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. |
3009 | Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor] |
Full Idea: God gave the male stickleback the idea that whatever is red is a rival. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.133) |
3008 | Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If I had to design homo sapiens, I would have made commonsense knowledge of homo sapiens psychology innate; that way nobody would have to spend time learning it. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.132) |
2990 | Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Contrary to commonsense, it looks as though much of what is in the mind is unlearned. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 15) |
2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
Full Idea: In the Representation Theory of Mind, programs (the 'laws of thought') may be explicitly represented, but data structures (the 'contents of thought') have to be. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 25) | |
A reaction: Presumably this is because content is where mental events actually meet up with the reality being considered. It may be an abstract procedure, but if it doesn't plug into reality then it isn't thought, but merely activity, like that of the liver. |
7326 | Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Sooner or later the physicists will complete the catalogue of ultimate and irreducible things, with the likes of spin, charm and charge. But aboutness won't be on the list; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], 4 Intro) | |
A reaction: I totally agree with this, which I take to be a warning to John Searle against including something called 'intrinsic intentionality' into his ontology. Intentionality 'emerges' out of certain complex brain activity. |
15494 | We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor] |
Full Idea: It's not clear what the point would be of an explanation of the intentionality of attitudes which presupposes objects that are intentional intrinsically. Why not just say that the attitudes are? | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], Ch.3) |
3001 | Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Behaviourists had trouble providing a robust construal of mental causation (and hence had no logical space for a psychology of mental processes). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
A reaction: If they could reduce all mental events to stimulus-response, that seems to fall within the normal procedures of physical causation. There is no problem of mental causation if your ontology is entirely physical. |
2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
Full Idea: For any machine that computes a function by executing an explicit algorithm, there exists a hard-wired machine that computes the same function by not executing an explicit algorithm. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 23) | |
A reaction: It is certainly vital for functionalists to understand that software can be hardwired. Presumably we should understand a hardwired alogirthm as 'implicit'? |
3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Everybody is a functionalist, in that we all hold that mental states are individuated, at least in part, by reference to their causal powers. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.138) | |
A reaction: I might individuate the Prime Minister by the carnation in his buttonhole. However, even a dualist must concede that we individuate mental faculties by their role within the mind. |
5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
Full Idea: Fodor sees behaviour as manifestations of psychological capacities, which result from the subject being a set of interconnected 'homunculi', which in turn have subcomponents, all of it arranged in a hierarchy. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.9 | |
A reaction: This may well miss out the most interesting parts of a mind (such as awareness, and personal identity), but it sounds basically right, especially when an evolutionary history is added to the system. Parts of my mind intrude into my trains of thought. |
2995 | Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Mind/brain supervenience is the best idea anyone has had so far about how mental causation is possible. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 30) | |
A reaction: I would have thought that mind brain identity was a much better idea (see Idea 3440). Supervenience seems to prove that 'mental causation' occurs, but doesn't explain it. |
2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
Full Idea: With Associationism there proved to be no way to get a rational mental life to emerge from the sorts of causal relations among thoughts that the 'laws of association' recognised. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 18) | |
A reaction: This might not be true if you add the concept of evolution, which has refined the associations to generate truth (which is vital for survival). |
3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Central state identity theorists had trouble providing for the nomological possibility of rational machines (and hence no space for a non-biological, e.g. computational, theory of intelligence). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
A reaction: I surmise that a more externalist account of the physical mind might do the trick, by explaining intelligence in terms of an evolved relationship between brain and environment. |
2992 | We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor] |
Full Idea: We are on the verge of solving a great mystery about the mind: how is rationality mechanically possible? | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 20) | |
A reaction: Optimistic, given that AI has struggled to implement natural languages, mainly because common sense knowledge seems too complex to encode. Can a machine determine logical forms of sentences? |
2988 | Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Commonsense belief/desire psychology explains vastly more of the facts about behaviour than any of the alternative theories available. It could hardly fail to; there are no alternative theories available. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.x) | |
A reaction: The alternative view wouldn't expect a clear-cut theory, because it deals with the endless complexity of brain events. The charge is that Fodor and co oversimplify their account, in their desperation for a 'theory'. |
3010 | Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor] |
Full Idea: A defence of the language of thought has to be an argument that believing and desiring are typically structured states. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.136) | |
A reaction: A structure is one thing, and a language is another. Both believings and desirings can be extremely vague, to the point where the owner is unsure what is believed or desired. They can, of course, be extremely precise. |
2999 | Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor] |
Full Idea: People who ask what the narrow content of the thought that water is wet is (for example) get what they deserve: phenomenalism, verificationism, 'procedural' semantics, or scepticism, according to temperament. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 51) | |
A reaction: The question is whether content IS narrow. We could opt for broad content because then we wouldn't have to worry about scepticism, but I doubt whether we would then sleep well at night. |
3012 | Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If thoughts have their causal roles in virtue of their contents, then two thoughts with identical contents ought to be identical in their causal roles. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.140) | |
A reaction: A pencil would presumably have the same causal role if it wrote a love poem or hate mail. But a pencil is also good for scratching your back. 'Causal role' can be a rather vacuous idea. |
2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
Full Idea: According to Gricean theories of meaning, the meaning of a sentence is inherited from the propositional attitudes that the sentence is conventionally used to express. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 50) | |
A reaction: Since the propositional attitudes contain propositions, this seems like a very plausible idea. If an indexical like 'I' is involved, the meaning of the sentence is not the same as its 'conventional' use. |
3006 | Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The mechanisms that deliver falsehoods are somehow parasitic on the ones that deliver truths. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.107) | |
A reaction: In the case of a sentence and its negation it is not clear which one is 'parasitic', because that can usually be reversed by paraphrasing. Historically, I very much hope that truth-speaking came first. |
3007 | Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Verification procedures connect terms with their denotations in too many ways. Different routes to 'star' do not determine different semantic values for 'star'. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.125) | |
A reaction: This fairly conclusively shows that meaning is not 'the method of verification' - but that wasn't a difficult target to hit. |
3004 | The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 79) | |
A reaction: Among other things. It can also arrive from a desire to remember something. A sentence can also acquire meaning compositionally (by assembling) with no use or aim. |
3000 | Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Meaning holism really is a crazy doctrine. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 60) | |
A reaction: Yes. What is not crazy is a contextualist account of utterances, and a recognition of the contextual and relational ingredient in the meanings of most of our sentences. |
3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
Full Idea: It's an embarrassment for attempts to construct content from functional role that quite different sorts of mental states can nevertheless share their contents. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 70) | |
A reaction: That is, presumably, one content having two different roles. Two contents with the same role is 'multiple realisability'. Pain can tell me I'm damaged, or reveal that my damaged nerves are healing. Problem? |
2996 | Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The identity of the content of mental states does not ensure the identity of their extensions. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 45) | |
A reaction: Obviously if I am thinking each day about 'my sheep', that won't change if I am unaware that one of them died this morning. …Because I didn’t have the precise number of sheep in mind. |