Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Concept of Mind' and 'Armstrong on combinatorial possibility'

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18 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
Philosophy aims to become more disciplined about categories [Ryle]
     Full Idea: Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category-disciplines.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], Intro p.8), quoted by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.2
     A reaction: I rather like this. It fits the view the idea that metaphysics aims to give the structure of reality. If there are not reasonably uniform categories for things, then reality is indescribable. Improving our categories seems a thoroughly laudable aim.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis
Armstrong's analysis seeks truthmakers rather than definitions [Lewis]
     Full Idea: I suggest that Armstrong has an unfamiliar notion of analysis, as not primarily a quest for definitions, but as a quest for truth-makers.
     From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'The demand')
     A reaction: This is not a dichotomy, I think, but a shift of emphasis. A definition will probably refer to truthmakers; a decent account of truthmakers would approximate a definition.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
Predications aren't true because of what exists, but of how it exists [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Predications seem, for the most part, to be true not because of whether things are, but because of how things are.
     From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'The demand')
     A reaction: This simple point shows that you get into a tangle if you insist that truthmakers just consist of what exists. Lewis says Armstrong offers states of affairs as truthmakers for predications.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / d. Being makes truths
Say 'truth is supervenient on being', but construe 'being' broadly [Lewis]
     Full Idea: I want to say that 'truth is supervenient on being', but as an Ostrich about universals I want to construe 'being' broadly.
     From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'Truth')
     A reaction: [His slogan is borrowed from Bigelow 1988:132-,158-9] This seems much more promising that the more precise and restricted notion of truthmakers, as resting on the existence of particular things. Presentism is the big test case.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 9. Making Past Truths
Presentism says only the present exists, so there is nothing for tensed truths to supervene on [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Presentism says that although there is nothing outside the present, yet there are past-tensed and future-tensed truths that do not supervene on the present, and hence do not supervene on being.
     From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], p.207)
     A reaction: Since I rather like both presentism and truth supervening on being, this observation comes as rather a devastating blow. I thought philosophy would be quite easy, but it's turning out to be rather tricky. Could tensed truths supervene on the present?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 9. States of Affairs
How do things combine to make states of affairs? Constituents can repeat, and fail to combine [Lewis]
     Full Idea: To me it is mysterious how a state of affairs is made out of its particular and universal constituents. Different states of affairs may have the very same constituents, and the existence of constituents by no means entails the existence of the states.
     From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'What is there')
     A reaction: He is rejecting the structure of states of affairs as wholes made of parts. But then mereology was never going to explain the structure of the world.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / e. Dispositions as potential
A dispositional property is not a state, but a liability to be in some state, given a condition [Ryle]
     Full Idea: To possess a dispositional property is not to be in a particular state;..it is to be bound or liable to be in a particular state, or undergo a particular change, when a particular condition is realized.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], II (7))
     A reaction: Whether this view is correct is the central question about dispositions. Ryle's view is tied in with Humean regularities and behaviourism about mind. The powers view, which I favour, says a disposition is a drawn bow, an actual state of power.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 7. Against Powers
No physical scientist now believes in an occult force-exerting agency [Ryle]
     Full Idea: The old error treating the term 'Force' as denoting an occult force-exerting agency has been given up in the physical sciences.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], V (1))
     A reaction: Since 1949 they seem to have made a revival, once they are divested of their religious connotations. The word 'agency' is the misleading bit. Even Leibniz's monads weren't actual agents - he always said that was 'an analogy'.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
Can one movement have a mental and physical cause? [Ryle]
     Full Idea: The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine maintains that there exist both minds and bodies; that there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements, and mental causes of corporeal movements.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], I (3))
     A reaction: This nicely identifies the problem of double causation, which can be found in Spinoza (Idea 4862). The dualists have certainly got a problem here, but they can deny a conflict. The initiation of a hand movement is not mechanical at all.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
We cannot introspect states of anger or panic [Ryle]
     Full Idea: No one could introspectively scrutinize the state of panic or fury.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], Ch.6)
     A reaction: It depends what you mean by 'scrutinize'. No human being ever loses their temper or panics without a background thought of "Oh dear, I'm losing it - it would probably be better if I didn't" (or, as Aristotle might say, "I'm angry, and so I should be").
Reporting on myself has the same problems as reporting on you [Ryle]
     Full Idea: My reports on myself are subject to the same kinds of defects as are my reports on you.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This may be true of memories or of motives, but it hardly seems to apply to being in pain, where you might be totally lying, where the worst I could do to myself is exaggerate. "You're fine; how am I?"
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
I cannot prepare myself for the next thought I am going to think [Ryle]
     Full Idea: One thing that I cannot prepare myself for is the next thought that I am going to think.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], VI (7))
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
Dualism is a category mistake [Ryle]
     Full Idea: The official theory of mind (as private, non-spatial, outside physical laws) I call 'the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine'. I hope to prove it entirely false, and show that it is one big mistake, namely a 'category mistake'.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], I (2))
     A reaction: This is the essence of Ryle's eliminitavist behaviourism. Personally I agree that the idea of a separate 'ghost' running the machine is utterly implausible, but it isn't a 'category mistake'. The mind clearly exists, but the confusion is about what it is.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Behaviour depends on desires as well as beliefs [Chalmers on Ryle]
     Full Idea: Another problem for Ryle (from Chisholm and Geach) is that no mental state could be defined by a single range of behavioural dispositions, independent of any other mental states. (Behaviour depends upon desires as well as beliefs).
     From: comment on Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949]) by David J.Chalmers - The Conscious Mind 1.1.2
     A reaction: The defence of behaviourism is to concede this point, but suggest that behavioural dispositions come in large groups of interdependent sets, some relating to beliefs, others relating to desires, and each group leads to a behaviour.
You can't explain mind as dispositions, if they aren't real [Benardete,JA on Ryle]
     Full Idea: Ryle is tough-minded to the point of incoherence when he combines a dispositional account of the mind with an anti-realist account of dispositions.
     From: comment on Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.22
     A reaction: A nice point, but it strikes me that Ryle was, by temperament at least, an eliminativist about the mind, so the objection would not bother him. Maybe a disposition and a property are the same thing?
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
How can behaviour be the cause of behaviour? [Chalmers on Ryle]
     Full Idea: A problem for Ryle is that mental states may cause behaviour, but if mental states are themselves behavioural or behavioural dispositions, as opposed to internal states, then it is hard to see how they could do the job.
     From: comment on Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949]) by David J.Chalmers - The Conscious Mind 1.1.2
     A reaction: I strongly approve of this, as an objection to any form of behaviourism or functionalism. If you identify something by its related behaviour, or its apparent function, this leaves the question 'WHY does it behave or function in this way?'
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
     Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.