Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Dispositional Modality' and 'Mind and World'

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8 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 3. Pure Reason
8251 The logical space of reasons is a natural phenomenon, and it is the realm of freedom [McDowell]
     Full Idea: The logical space of reasons is just part of the logical space of nature. ...And, in a Kantian slogan, the space of reasons is the realm of freedom.
     From: John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], Intro 7)
     A reaction: [second half on p.5] This is a modern have-your-cake-and-eat-it view of which I am becoming very suspicious. The modern Kantians (Davidson, Nagel, McDowell) are struggling to naturalise free will, but it won't work. Just dump it!
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact
15201 That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN]
     Full Idea: The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact.
     From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b
     A reaction: He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality
17535 Dispositionality has its own distinctive type of modality [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: We contend that dispositionality involves a non-alethic, sui generis, irreducible modality.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Dispositional Modality [2011], 1)
     A reaction: This is a lovely bold proposal, and seems to be supported by Werner Heisenberg, in Idea 17534.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
8128 Representation must be propositional if it can give reasons and be epistemological [McDowell, by Burge]
     Full Idea: McDowell has claimed that one cannot make sense of representation that plays a role in epistemology unless one takes the representation to be propositional, and thus capable of yielding reasons.
     From: report of John McDowell (Mind and World [1994]) by Tyler Burge - Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 p.456
     A reaction: A transcendental argument leads back to a somewhat implausible conclusion. I suspect that McDowell has a slightly inflated (Kantian) notion of the purity of the 'space of reasons'. Do philosophers just imagine their problems?
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 5. Interpretation
19092 There is no pure Given, but it is cultured, rather than entirely relative [McDowell, by Macbeth]
     Full Idea: McDowell argues that the Myth of the Given shows not that there is no content to a concept that is not a matter of its inferential relations to other concepts but only that awareness of the sort that we enjoy ...is acquired in the course of acculturation.
     From: report of John McDowell (Mind and World [1994]) by Danielle Macbeth - Pragmatism and Objective Truth p.185
     A reaction: The first view is of Wilfred Sellars, who derives pragmatic relativism from his rejection of the Myth. This idea is helpful is seeing why McDowell has a good proposal. As I look out of my window, my immediate experience seems 'cultured'.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
8253 Sense impressions already have conceptual content [McDowell]
     Full Idea: The world's impressions on our senses are already possessed of conceptual content.
     From: John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], I.6)
     A reaction: This is a key idea of McDowell's, which challenges most traditional empiricist views, and (maybe) offers a solution to the rationalist/empiricist debate. His commitment to the 'space of reasons' strikes me as an optional extra.
19. Language / F. Communication / 4. Private Language
8254 Forming concepts by abstraction from the Given is private definition, which the Private Lang. Arg. attacks [McDowell]
     Full Idea: The idea that concepts can be formed by abstraction from the Given just is the idea of private ostensive definition. So the Private Language Argument just is the rejection of the Given, in so far as it bears on the possibilities for language.
     From: John McDowell (Mind and World [1994], I.7)
     A reaction: I'm not clear why the process of abstraction from raw impressions shouldn't be a matter of public, explicit, community negotiation. We seem to be able to share and compare fairly raw impressions without much trouble (discussing sunsets).
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series
22899 'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
     Full Idea: One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'.
     From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive'
     A reaction: [Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein?