Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Kant's Analytic' and 'Rationality'

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4 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory

23304	The ancient Memorists said virtually all types of thinking could be done simply by memory [Sorabji]
	Full Idea: The ancient medical Memorists said that ordinary thinking, inferring, reflecting, believing, assuming, examining, generalising and knowing can all be done simply on the basis of memory.
	From: Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Inference')
	A reaction: The think there is a plausible theory that all neurons do is remember, and are mainly distinguished by the duration of their memories. We might explain these modes of thinking in terms of various combinations of the fast and the slow.

23303	Stoics say true memory needs reflection and assent, but animals only have perceptual recognition [Sorabji]
	Full Idea: Stoics say memory proper involves reflection and assent. Animal memory, by contrast, is not memory proper, but mere perceptual recognition. The horse remembers the road when he is on it, but not when he is in the stable.
	From: Richard Sorabji (Rationality [1996], 'Other')
	A reaction: An interesting distinction. Do I remember something if I can never recall it, and yet recognise it when it reappears, such as a person I knew long ago? 'Memory' is ambiguous, between lodged in the mind, and recallable. Unfair to horses, this.

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

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?

27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 4. Substantival Space

8592	Empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not [Bennett, by Shoemaker]
	Full Idea: Because of the multidimensionality of space and unidimensionality of time, empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not.
	From: report of Jonathan Bennett (Kant's Analytic [1966], p.175) by Sydney Shoemaker - Time Without Change p.49 n4
	A reaction: An interesting observation, which could have been used by Samuel Clarke in his attempts to prove absolute space to Leibniz. The point does not prove absolute space, of course, but it seems to make a difference.