Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Confessions of a Philosopher', 'Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events'' and 'Looking for Spinoza'

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5 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 10. Conatus/Striving
Conatus is brain circuits seeking survival and well-being [Damasio]
     Full Idea: Conatus is explicable as the aggregate of dispositions laid down in brain circuitry that seeks both survival and well-being.
     From: Antonio Damasio (Looking for Spinoza [2003], p.36)
     A reaction: So conatus is the motivation of my inner personal assistant, who reminds me what I am doing later today. I like the mention of dispositions, hence powers.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee]
     Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?'
     From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I)
     A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
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
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
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.