5 ideas
| 21953 | For Heidegger there is 'ontic' truth or 'uncoveredness', as in "he is a true friend" [Heidegger, by Wrathall] |
| Full Idea: We say things like 'he is a true friend'. Heidegger calls this kind of truth 'ontic truth' or the 'uncoveredness' of entities. | |
| From: report of Martin Heidegger (On the Essence of Truth [1935]) by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 7 | |
| A reaction: [In his later essays] The example is very bad for showing a clear alternative meaning of 'true'. I presume it can only be explained in essentialist terms - an entity is 'true' if its appearance and behaviour conforms to its essence. |
| 6003 | Galen showed by experiment that the brain controls the body [Galen, by Hankinson] |
| Full Idea: Galen established by experiments in neural anatomy that the brain really is, contra the Stoics and Aristotelians, the body's control centre. | |
| From: report of Galen (On Hippocrates and Plato [c.170]) by R.J. Hankinson - Galen (damaged) | |
| A reaction: And about time too. This is one of the most significant events in the development of human understanding. No one has been able to go back to the old view, even Descartes, no matter how much they may long to do so. |
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
| 6030 | Each part of the soul has its virtue - pleasure for appetite, success for competition, and rectitude for reason [Galen] |
| Full Idea: We have by nature these three appropriate relationships, corresponding to each form of the soul's parts - to pleasure because of the appetitive part, to success because of the competitive part, and to rectitude because of the rational part. | |
| From: Galen (On Hippocrates and Plato [c.170], 5.5.8) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice combination of Plato's tripartite theory of soul (in 'Republic') and Aristotle's derivation of virtues from functions. Presumably, though, reason should master the other two, and there is nothing in Galen's idea to explain this. |