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All the ideas for 'Are Persons Bodies?', 'Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events'' and 'works'

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6 ideas

16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 1. Existence of Persons

3238	'Dead person' isn't a contradiction, so 'person' is somewhat vague [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If we say (in opposition to a physical view of identity) that when Jones dies 'Jones ceases to exist' but 'Jones' body does not cease to exist', this shouldn't be pressed too hard, because it would make 'dead person' a contradiction.
	From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.74)
	A reaction: A good point, which nicely challenges the distinction between a 'human' and a 'person', but the problem case is much more the one where Jones gets advanced Alzheimer's, rather than dies. A dead body ceases as a mechanism, as well as as a personality.

3239	You can only really love a person as a token, not as a type [Williams,B]
	Full Idea: If you love a person as a type instead of as a token (i.e. a "person", instead of a physical body) you might prefer a run-down copy of them to no person at all, but at this point our idea of loving a person begins to crack.
	From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.81)
	A reaction: Very persuasive. If you love a person you can cope with them getting old. If you own an original watercolour, you can accept that it fades, but you would replace a reproduction of it if that faded. But what, then, is it that you love?

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument

6383	Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson]
	Full Idea: The concept of cause is what holds together our picture of the universe, a picture that would otherwise disintegrate into a diptych of the mental and the physical.
	From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi)
	A reaction: Davidson seems to be the one who put mental causation at the centre of philosophy. By then denying that there are any 'psycho-physical' laws, he seems to me to have re-opened the metaphysical gap he says he was trying to close.

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will

6385	The causally strongest reason may not be the reason the actor judges to be best [Davidson]
	Full Idea: I defend my causal view of action by arguing that a reason that is causally strongest need not be a reason deemed by the actor to provide the strongest (best) grounds for acting.
	From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xii)
	A reaction: If I smoke a cigarette against my better judgement, it is not clear to me how the desire to smoke it, which overcomes my judgement not to smoke it, counts as the causally strongest 'reason'. We seem to have two different senses of 'reason' here.

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason

6384	The notion of cause is essential to acting for reasons, intentions, agency, akrasia, and free will [Davidson]
	Full Idea: My thesis is that the ordinary notion of cause is essential to understanding what it is to act with a reason, to have an intention to act, to be an agent, to act counter to one's own best judgement, or to act freely.
	From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi)
	A reaction: I cautiously agree, particularly with idea that causation is essential to acting as an agent. Since I believe 'free will' to be a complete delusion, that part of his thesis doesn't interest me. The hard part is understanding acting for a reason.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 1. Ideology

15664	Ideology is 'socially necessary illusion' or 'socially necessary false-consciousness' [Adorno, by Finlayson]
	Full Idea: Adorno defines ideology as 'socially necessary illusion' or 'socially necessary false-consciousness' (and the young Habermas accepted something like this definition).
	From: report of Theodor W. Adorno (works [1955]) by James Gordon Finlayson - Habermas Ch.1:11
	A reaction: The marxism seems to reside in the view that such things are always 'false'. If they gradually became 'true', would they cease to be ideology? Is it impossible for widespread beliefs to be 'true'?