3643
|
The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes]
|
|
Full Idea:
The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body.
|
|
From:
René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225)
|
|
A reaction:
A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious.
|
4366
|
We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse]
|
|
Full Idea:
Williams has expressed pessimism about the project of Aristotelian naturalism on the grounds that his conception of nature, and thereby of human nature, was normative, and that, in a scientific age, this is not a conception that we can take on board.
|
|
From:
report of Bernard Williams (works [1971]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.11
|
|
A reaction:
I think there is a compromise here. The existentialist denial of intrinsic human nature seems daft, but Aristotelians must grasp the enormous flexibility that is possible to human behaviour because of the open nature of rationality.
|