Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Confessions of a Philosopher', 'Reply to Second Objections' and 'Frege on Extensions from Concepts'

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3 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 4. The Cogito
The Cogito is not a syllogism but a self-evident intuition [Descartes]
     Full Idea: When someone says 'I am thinking, therefore I am, or I exist', he does not deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism, but recognises it as something self-evident by a simple intuition of the mind.
     From: René Descartes (Reply to Second Objections [1641], 140)
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.
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
Are meaning and expressed concept the same thing? [Burge, by Segal]
     Full Idea: It is Burge's view that what a word means should be distinguished from the concept it expresses.
     From: report of Tyler Burge (Frege on Extensions from Concepts [1984]) by Gabriel M.A. Segal - A Slim Book about Narrow Content 3.2
     A reaction: Presumably the immediate meaning (e.g. of 'arthritis') is socially determined, while the concept is fixed by history? Or what?