Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology', 'In a Different Voice' and 'Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation

10494	Several words may label a category; one word can name several categories; some categories lack words [Ellen]
	Full Idea: Words are not always a good guide to the existence of categories: there may be several words which label the same categories (synonyms). and the same word can be used for quite different ideas. Some categories may exist without being labelled.
	From: Roy Ellen (Categories, Classification, Cogn. Anthropology [2006], I)
	A reaction: This is the sort of point which seems obvious to anyone outside philosophy, but which philosophers seem to find difficult to accept. Philosophers should pay much more attention to animals, and to illiterate peoples. Varieties of rice can lack labels.

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories

3158	Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett]
	Full Idea: Intentional theory is vacuous as psychology because it presupposes and does not explain rationality or intelligence.
	From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.15?)
	A reaction: Virtually every philosophical theory seems to founder because it presupposes something like the thing it is meant to explain. I agree that 'intentionality' is a slightly airy concept that would probably reduce to something better.

17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 3. Intentional Stance

3159	Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett]
	Full Idea: Intentional systems don't really have beliefs and desires, but one can explain and predict their behaviour by ascribing beliefs and desires to them. This strategy is pragmatic, not right or wrong.
	From: Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.7?)
	A reaction: If the ascription of beliefs and desires explains behaviour, then that is good grounds for thinking they might be real features of the brain, and even if that is not so, they are real enough as abstractions from brain events, like the 'economic climate'.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics

18665	Moral problems are responsibility conflicts, needing contextual and narrative attention to relationships [Gilligan]
	Full Idea: The moral problem arises from conflicting responsibilities rather than competing rights, and its resolution needs contextual and narrative thinking. This morality as care centers around the understanding of responsibility and relationships.
	From: Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice [1982], p.19), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn)
	A reaction: [Kymlicka cites her as a key voice in feminist moral philosophy] I like all of this, especially the very original thought (to me, anyway) that moral thinking should be 'narrative' in character.