45 ideas
| 23966 | The personal view can still be objective, so I call sciences 'impersonal', rather than objective [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: 'Objective' is misleading because it is possible to be, from a personal point of view, more or less objective; objectivity admits of degrees… I prefer to speak of sciences as 'impersonal', because the personal view is lost. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This evidently relates to Perry's claim that the world contains additional indexical facts. I think I agree with this thought. Objectivity is a mode of subjectivity. Thermometers are not 'objective'. Physics is certainly impersonal. |
| 4037 | Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §9) | |
| A reaction: This presumably follows from an assumption that all beliefs need reasons, but is that the case? The Principle of Sufficient Reason precedes Ockham's Razor. |
| 4027 | Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §1) | |
| A reaction: Note that this definition does not mention a causal role for properties. |
| 4029 | Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §3) | |
| A reaction: Objects might be grasped without language, but events cannot be understood, and explanations of events seem inconceivable without properties (implying that they are essentially causal). |
| 24005 | We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: We know others' emotions by 1) understanding and explaining them, 2) emotional contagion, 3) empathy, 4) in-his-shoes imagining, and 5) sympathy. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 7 Intro) | |
| A reaction: He says these must be clearly distinguished, because they are often confused. In-his-shoes is 'me in their position', where empathy is how the position is just for them. The Simulationist approach likes these two. Sympathy need not share the feelings. |
| 24006 | Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Empathy and in-his-shoes imagining are not sufficient for sympathy. Nor are they necessary. You can even sympathise with another when these are impossible, with the sufferings of a whale or a dog, for example. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 7 'Sympathy') | |
| A reaction: Goldie is right that these distinct faculties are a blurred muddle in most of our accounts of dealing with other people. Empathy with a whale in not actually impossible, because we recognise their suffering, and we understand suffering. |
| 23978 | 'Having an emotion' differs from 'being emotional' [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: There is a contrast in commonsense psychology between 'being emotional' and 'having an emotion'. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: Is this just that being emotional is displaying the existing emotion? Though we say someone is 'being emotional' when the emotion seems to take control of their actions. |
| 23973 | Unlike moods, emotions have specific objects, though the difference is a matter of degree [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Emotions have more specific objects than moods. The difference is a matter of degree, so emotions don't necessarily have a specific object, and moods are not necessarily undirected towards an object, or lacking in intentionality. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Intentionality') | |
| A reaction: Could you simultaneously have an emotion and a mood which were in conflict, such as joy and misery (singing the blues), or love and hate ('odi et amo')? Could one transition into the other, as the object became clear, or faded away? |
| 23974 | Emotional intentionality as belief and desire misses out the necessity of feelings [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers who discuss the intentionality of the emotions seek to capture the intentionality of the emotions in terms of beliefs, or beliefs and desires. I think this is a mistake, and runs the risk of leaving feelings out of emotional experience. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Intentionality') | |
| A reaction: [He gives a list, which includes Kenny and Davidson] I would have thought that desires, at least, necessarily involve feelings, and neuroscientists seem to find emotions everywhere, including as part of belief. Be more holistic? |
| 23972 | A long lasting and evolving emotion is still seen as a single emotion, such as love [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: In narratives the different elements of an emotion are conceived of as all being part of the same emotion, in spite of its complex, episodic and dynamic features. Verbs expressing emotions don not use continuous tenses, such as 'he is being in love'. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'What') | |
| A reaction: Goldie is keen on seeing emotions as part of a life narrative. An intriguing problem for the metaphysics of identity. If someone's love for a person comes and goes, is it the same love each time? |
| 23992 | Some Aborigines have fifteen different words for types of fear [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The Pintupi Aborigines of the Western Australian Desert have no less than fifteen words for different types of fear, including one for a sudden fear which leads one to stand up to see what caused it. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: Reminiscent of the many Inuit words for snow, but this time it is about human experience, rather than the environment. We must assume they can distinguish the different types, so these gradations are real. |
| 23979 | Emotional responses can reveal to us our values, which might otherwise remain hidden [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Our emotional responses can reveal to us what we value, and what we value might not be epistemically accessible to us if we did not have such responses. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Conclusion') | |
| A reaction: This obviously invites the question of whether the emotion reveals the value, or determines the value. I suspect it is more the latter, because it is hard to see what art (for example) could have for us if we had no emotional responses. |
| 23976 | If we have a 'feeling towards' an object, that gives the recognition a different content [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The content of the recognition in 'feeling towards' is different from the content of the recognition where no emotion is involved. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Education') | |
| A reaction: ['Feeling toward' is Goldie's coinage, to capture the intentionality in felt emotion] Interesting, but not convinced. Maybe the emotion just follows fast after the mere recognition. When I recognise a friend in a crowd, that triggers a feeling. |
| 23977 | When actions are performed 'out of' emotion, they appear to be quite different [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Consider striking a blow or seeking safety unemotionally. Now consider when you act out of emotion: angrily striking the blow, or fearfully running away. The phenomenology of such actions is fundamentally different in character. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Explanation') | |
| A reaction: True, I guess. This has the behaviourist's problem of Superactors and Superspartans, of pretended or suppressed anger or fear. There is a sliding scale from stone cold to frenzied emotion. |
| 23980 | It is best to see emotions holistically, as embedded in a person's life narrative [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The best understanding of a person's emotions …will be holistic in its overall approach, seeing feelings as embedded in an emotion's narrative, as part of a person's life. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 Intro) | |
| A reaction: Sounds reasonable, but I didn't find it very helpful. When told that my Self or my life has a 'narrative' I don't learn much. The concept of narrative relies on selves and lives. Ditto for being told that emotions or language are 'holistic'. |
| 23982 | If emotions are 'towards' things, they can't be bodily feelings, which lack aboutness [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: If emotion has the world-directed intentionality of 'feeling towards' it follows that it is not bodily feeling, for bodily feelings lack the required 'direct' (as contrasted with 'borrowed') intentionality. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 'Towards') | |
| A reaction: This is a direct response to William James's view, and seems correct. It is a widely held view that emotions are usually 'about' something, and it is hard to see how getting red in the face could do that. |
| 23968 | If reasons are seen impersonally (as just causal), then feelings are an irrelevant extra [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: If someone thought that reasons can be characterised impersonally, say in terms of causal role …it is then glaringly obvious that feelings cannot be left out, so they have to be added on. Hence I introduce the idea of 'feeling towards'. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] That is, he wants us to see feelings as intentional, active, motivating and causal, and not the marginal epiphenomena implied by an impersonal account. I think he is right. |
| 23969 | We have feelings of which we are hardly aware towards things in the world [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: One can be unreflectively emotionally engaged with the world, having feelings towards some object in the world, and yet at that moment not be reflectively aware of having those feelings. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that we do not just await some 'object' to trigger a background feeling, because we always have feelings. They are the continuous shifting wallpaper of our mental dwellings - which we sometimes notice. |
| 23984 | An emotion needs episodes of feeling, but not continuously [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: I see no need to insist that feelings …must be present at all times whilst you are having an emotion, …but without at least episodes of feeling, of which you can be more or less aware, an experience would not be an emotional one. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 'Unreflective') | |
| A reaction: [He cites William James] An odd situation, but it is the same as many chronic illnesses. Presumably because of the actual episodes the person will be aware of the emotion as a background state of potential episodes. |
| 24001 | Moods can focus as emotions, and emotions can blur into moods [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: A mood can focus into an emotion, and an emotion can blur out of focus into the non-specificity of mood. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Mood') | |
| A reaction: I am struck by how the strong emotion of a vivid dream can remain as an inarticulate mood for the rest of the day. |
| 23986 | Early Chinese basic emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The Chinese Li Chi encyclopaedia (1st century BCE) says there are seven 'feelings of men': joy, anger, sadness, fear, love, disliking, and liking. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: [In J.Russell 1991] Love sounds like a stronger version of liking. If you are trying to train your feelings, it is helpful to have a basic list of them, even if the list is rather speculative. |
| 23970 | Emotions are not avocado pears, with a rigid core and changeable surface [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: In an evolutionary and cultural account of emotions, I resist the 'avocado pear' conception of emotions, that our emotional behaviour comprises an inner core of 'hard-wired' reaction, and an out element which is open to cultural influences. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He is concerned with whether emotions can be educated, and defends the view that they can all be channelled or changed. In particular he rejects the idea that the stone consists of 'basic' emotions, which are untouchable. |
| 23985 | A basic emotion is the foundation of a hierarchy, such as anger for types of annoyance [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The idea of basic emotions is that our concepts of emotions are hierarchically organised. For example, if anger is a basic emotion, then less basic species of anger might be annoyance, fury, rage, indignation, and so forth. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: Most modern theorists seem to reject this idea. In a family of related emotions (each having a similar focal object), it is hard to see which one of them is basic, other than being the best known. Maybe the weakest one is basic? |
| 23991 | Cross-cultural studies of facial expressions suggests seven basic emotions [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It has been suggested that there are seven 'basic' emotions, based on cross-cultural studies of facial expressions. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Evidence') | |
| A reaction: [Paul Ekman is cited] This makes the idea of universal basic emotions much more plausible. Goldie respects the research, but is cautious about inferences, mainly because digging deeper (such as interviews) makes it more complex. |
| 23967 | Some emotions are direct responses, and neither rational nor irrational [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It is perfectly intelligible and entirely human to experience an emotion when seeing a low-flying bat, where we would not want to say that the experience was either rational or irrational. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Goldie is attacking the common tendency of philosophers to over-intellectualise emotions. This example makes his point conclusively. |
| 23971 | Emotional thought is not rational, but it can be intelligible [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Emotions are not based on syllogistic reasoning ….but the thoughts involved in an emotion can show it to be intelligible, intelligibility being a thinner notion than rationality. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 1 Intro) | |
| A reaction: A nice distinction. The emotion is the best explanation. Compare 'intuition' and 'sensible' behaviour as also intelligible. An obvious problem is that if a person runs amok because they have a brain tumour, that is intelligible, but in no way rational. |
| 23975 | Learning an evaluative property like 'dangerous' is also learning an emotion [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: The process of teaching a child how to identify things which are dangerous is typically one and the same process as teaching that child when fear is merited. ...'Dangerous' is an evaluative property, meriting a certain sort of response. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 2 'Education') | |
| A reaction: I like this, because it shows the unity between our inner life and our experience of the external world. Concepts and emotions are usually responses, rather than private initiatives. |
| 23983 | We call emotions 'passions' because they are not as controlled as we would like [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: In feeling towards things the imagination tends to 'run away with you', which is partly why the emotions are 'passions'; your thoughts and feelings are not always as much under your control as you would want them to be. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 3 'Towards') | |
| A reaction: This may have the chronology wrong. 'Passion' doesn't mean uncontrolled. I take it that 'passion' was an older word for 'emotion', and became attached to the older view of emotions as dangerous and corrupting. |
| 23999 | Emotional control is hard, but we are responsible for our emotions over long time periods [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: To some extent our emotions cannot be controlled. But to say that we are not responsible for our emotions is to ignore the possibility of educating them over time, so that, ideally, our responses come to be consonant with deliberated rational choices. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: So people go on anger management courses, or talk through crises with councellors. This idea describes most people correctly, but some are in the grips of passions which seem impossible to control. |
| 23994 | Emotions are not easily changed, as new knowledge makes little difference, and akrasia is possible [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Our emotional capabilities are not fully open to be developed. …First, they are to some extent cognitively impenetrable. Secondly, they can ground certain sorts of weakness of will, or akrasia. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: Education makes us more receptive to evidence. We could probably rate emotions on a scale indicating how easy they are to change. Jealousy seems tenacious. Most fears respond quickly to clear evidence. |
| 23998 | Emotional control is less concerned with emotional incidents, and more with emotional tendencies [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to speak as if emotional control is always a matter of controlling a token emotional response or action; …rather, it is like reshaping the channel along which future emotions can run. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: Presumably wise parents direct habitual feelings, where less wise parents respond to outbursts. The very best parents therefore presumably achieve complete brainwashing, and eliminate all initiative. Er, perhaps I've misunderstood? |
| 4039 | Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities (such as sets) are usually understood as lacking causes, effects, and spatio-temporal location. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §10) | |
| A reaction: This seems to beg some questions. Has the ideal of 'honour' never caused anything? Young men dream of pure velocity. |
| 23995 | Akrasia can be either overruling our deliberation, or failing to deliberate [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: I call it 'last ditch' akrasia when we deliberately decide to do something, and then don't do it, and 'impetuous' akrasia when we rush into doing something which, if we had deliberated, we would not have done. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that his impetuous version counts as akrasia, which seems to be vice of people who deliberate. [But he cites Aristotle 1150b19-]. |
| 24000 | Justifying reasons say you were right; excusing reasons say your act was explicable [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: A justifying reason will show that what you did, all things considered, was the right thing to do; an excusing reason will not justify, but will give some excuse to explain why you did what you did. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 Intro) | |
| A reaction: There are also internal reasons before the event, and explicit reasons afterwards. A mistaken justification might still be an excuse. |
| 22717 | Self-interest can fairly divide a cake; first person cuts, second person chooses [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: To fairly divide a cake between two children, the first divides it and the second chooses. …Even division is best, as it anticipates the second child will take the largest piece. Fairness is enforced by the children's self-interests. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 03 'Cake') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is introduced as the basic principle of game theory. There is an online video of two cats sharing a dish of milk; each one drinks a bit, then pushes the dish to the other one. I'm sure two children could manage that. |
| 22718 | Formal game theory is about maximising or minimising numbers in tables [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: At the most abstract level, game theory is about tables with numbers in them - numbers that entities are are efficiently acting to maximise or minimise. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 03 'Curve') | |
| A reaction: A brilliant idea. The question is the extent to which real life conforms to the numberical tables. The assumption that everyone is entirely self-seeking is blatantly false. Numbers like money have diminishing marginal utility. |
| 22719 | The minimax theorem says a perfect game of opposed people always has a rational solution [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: The minimax theorem says that there is always a rational solution to a precisely defined conflict between two people whose interests are completely opposite. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 03 'Minimax') | |
| A reaction: This is Von Neumann's founding theorem of game theory. It concerns maximising minimums, and minimising maximums. Crucially, I would say that it virtually never occurs that two people have completely opposite interests. There is a common good. |
| 22721 | The tragedy in prisoner's dilemma is when two 'nice' players misread each other [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: The tragedy is when two 'nice' players defect because they misread the other's intentions. The puzzle of the prisoner's dilemma is how such good intentions pave the road to hell. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 11 'Howard's') | |
| A reaction: I really wish these simple ideas were better known. They more or less encapsulate the tragedy of the human race, with its inability to prioritise the common good. |
| 22720 | Two prisoners get the best result by being loyal, not by selfish betrayal [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: Prisoners A and B can support or betray one another. If both support, they each get 1 year in prison. If one betrays, the betrayer gets 0 and the betrayed gets 3. If they both betray they get 2 each. The common good is to support each other. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 06 'Tucker's') | |
| A reaction: [by Albert Tucker, highly compressed] The classic Prisoner's Dilemma. It is artificial, but demonstrates that selfish behaviour gets a bad result (total of four years imprisonment), but the common good gets only two years. Every child should study this! |
| 22723 | Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - or else! [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: TIT FOR TAT threatens 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you - or else!'. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 12 'TIT') | |
| A reaction: Essentially human happiness arises if we are all nice, but also stand up firmly for ourselves. 'Doormats' (nice all the time) get exploited. TIT FOR TAT is weak, because it doesn't exploit people who don't respond at all. |
| 22722 | TIT FOR TAT says cooperate at first, then do what the other player does [Poundstone] |
| Full Idea: The successful TIT FOR TAT strategy (for the iterated prisoner's dilemma) says cooperate on the first round, then do whatever the other player did in the previous round. | |
| From: William Poundstone (Prisoner's Dilemma [1992], 12 'TIT') | |
| A reaction: There are also the tougher TWO TITS FOR A TAT, and the more forgiving TIT FOR TWO TATS. The one-for-one seems to be the main winner, and is commonly seen in animal life (apparently). I recommend this to school teachers. |
| 24003 | Character traits are both possession of and lack of dispositions [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Most traits are dispositions of a relatively stable sort, but traits need not be dispositions. A trait can be a lack of disposition. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Traits') | |
| A reaction: Presumably only the lack relatively normal dispositions will count as traits. |
| 24002 | We over-estimate the role of character traits when explaining behaviour [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: We significantly overestimate the role of character traits in explaining and predicting people's action: the so-called Fundamental Attribution error. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Traits') | |
| A reaction: I think this point is incredibly important in daily life. 'When someone shows you who they are, believe them!' is a good thought. But we must distinguish the deeply revealing moment from the transient superficial one. |
| 24004 | Psychologists suggest we are muddled about traits, and maybe they should be abandoned [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Empirical psychologists have suggested that our practice of trait ascription is systematically prone to error. Some philosophers have concluded that the whole business of trait ascription, and of virtue ethics, should be abandoned. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 6 'Traits') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Ross and Nisbet, and Gilbert Harman as a sceptic] I suspect the problem is that character traits are not precise enough for scientific assessment. How else are we going to describe a person? What else can we say at funerals? |
| 23993 | Our capabilities did not all evolve during the hunter gathering period [Goldie] |
| Full Idea: It is an unwarranted assumption that the only relevant evolutionary period in which our capabilities for emotions evolved is the period in which our ancestors were hunting and gathering. | |
| From: Peter Goldie (The Emotions [2000], 4 'Education') | |
| A reaction: Goldie says that the evolution of emotions could well extend to much earlier times. Presumably this also applies to other traits, notably those not obviously needed for hunting. Gathering needs long term planning. |