10 ideas
7440 | Secondary qualities are microscopic primary qualities of physical things [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I argue for the direct identification of the secondary qualities with microscopic primary qualities of physical things. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xxii) | |
A reaction: This sounds a bit like the eliminativism which Armstrong rejects. This seems in danger of mixing questions about the nature of mental events with questions about the nature of externally perceived objects. |
7437 | Consciousness and experience of qualities are not the same [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Consciousness and experience of qualities are often run together - a serious mistake, I think. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvii) | |
A reaction: A difficult claim to evaluate. Can we experience redness without being conscious of it? Could there be consciousness (e.g. of concepts) which didn't involve any qualities? I suspect that qualities are more basic than intentionality or consciousness. |
7434 | Behaviourism is false, but mind is definable as the cause of behaviour [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Behaviourism is false, but one is not far from the truth if one defines the mind as the cause of behaviour. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvi) | |
A reaction: As Putnam says, if you cut all the efferent (outgoing) nerves, you would have a mind with no behaviour at all. I would say my mind is full of stuff that never affects my behaviour. However, influencing behaviour is certainly the main function of a mind. |
7436 | The manifestations of a disposition need never actually exist [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The manifestations of a disposition have the particularly mysterious property (metaphysically speaking) that they need not exist - which makes them rather like intentional objects. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvii) | |
A reaction: His example is a brittle glass which never shatters. This problem seems to require the mention of conditional and counterfactual statements in the description of the actual world, which rather increases the workload for philosophers. |
7429 | Causal Functionalism says mental states are apt for producing behaviour [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I speak of my view as the Causal version of functionalism, which asserts that mental states are states apt for the production of certain ranges of behaviour and, in some cases, apt for being produced by certain ranges of stimuli. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xiv) | |
A reaction: This effectively makes a mental state a place in a flowdiagram (and hence the mind is software). It says nothing about what qualities the mental states have which make them apt for this role. Full explanations need more than the function. |
7438 | A causal theory of mentality would be improved by a teleological element [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I now think, following Lycan, that my Causal theory of mentality would be strengthened (perhaps eliminating some potential counter-examples) by the addition of a teleological element. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xviii) | |
A reaction: For Lycan, see Idea 6533. Armstrong has begun to realise that merely specifying the causal role of a mental state is too thin as an explanation. Teleology widens the notion of function. I also want to know about the properties that make it possible. |
7431 | The identity of mental states with physical properties is contingent, because the laws of nature are contingent [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Granted the contingency of the laws of nature, the identification of dispositions with their categorical bases can be contingent only. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvi) | |
A reaction: Personally I am not willing to grant the contingency of the laws of nature, but I suppose Armstrong is right about identity if he is right about laws. Presumably an identity could happen to be invariant across possible worlds, without being necessary. |
7432 | One mental role might be filled by a variety of physical types [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: If the mental is just that which plays a causal role then there is the possibility, which may even be an empirical possibility, that the causal role of tokens of the same mental type should be filled by tokens of significantly different physical types. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xiv) | |
A reaction: This allows for multiple realisability in a physicalist framework. Fear has the same role in all animals, but may be realised in physically different ways. I go further, and say that two mental states could differ, while playing the same role. |
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? |
15314 | Faraday's single field of variable forces introduces a criterion of Unity into what is ultimate [Faraday, by Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: In Faraday lines of force picture the directional structure of powers,...so the fundamental entity is a single, unified field. ...A new criterion of the ultimate has stepped in: Unity. The universal field is still the final explanation, but not invariant. | |
From: report of Michael Faraday (Experimental Researches in Electricity [1859]) by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B | |
A reaction: Almost Parmenides, except that the field is not invariant. But that was always the ancient objection to the One - that it offered no explanation of change. |