5 ideas
| 2605 | If everything uses mentalese, ALL concepts must be innate! [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Fodor concludes that every predicate that a brain could learn to use must have a translation into the computer language of that brain. So no "new" concepts can be acquired: all concepts are innate! | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (What is innate and why [1980], p.407) | |
| A reaction: Some misunderstanding, surely? No one could be so daft as to think that everyone has an innate idea of an iPod. More basic innate building blocks for thought are quite plausible. |
| 2606 | No machine language can express generalisations [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Computers have a built-in language, but not a language that contains quantifiers (that is, the words "all" and "some"). …So generalizations (containing "all") cannot ever be stated in machine language. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (What is innate and why [1980], p.408) | |
| A reaction: Computers are too sophisticated to need quantification (which is crude). Computers can work with very precise and complex specifications of the domain of a given variable. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 2854 | Prescriptivism says 'ought' without commitment to act is insincere, or weakly used [Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: Prescriptivism holds that if you think one 'ought' to do a certain kind of act, and yet you are not committed to doing that act in the relevant circumstances, then you either spoke insincerely, or are using the word 'ought' in a weak sense. | |
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Prescriptivism [1995], p.640) | |
| A reaction: So that's an 'ought', but not a 'genuine ought', then? (No True Scotsman move). Someone ought to rescue that drowning child, but I can't be bothered. |
| 2856 | Universal moral judgements imply the Golden Rule ('do as you would be done by') [Hooker,B] |
| Full Idea: Prescriptivity is especially important if moral judgements are universalizable, for then we can employ golden rule-style reasoning ('do as you would be done by'). | |
| From: Brad W. Hooker (Prescriptivism [1995], p.640) |