10 ideas
23249 | The early philosophers thought that reason has its own needs and desires [Frede,M] |
Full Idea: It is part of the notion of reason according to these philosophers [Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics] that reason has its own needs and desires. | |
From: Michael Frede (Intro to 'Rationality in Greek Thought' [1996], p.5) | |
A reaction: This sounds as if reason is treated as a separate person within a person. Anyone solving a logical puzzle feels that reason has its own compulsion. 'Boulesis' is the desire characteristic of reason. |
11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
Full Idea: So-called 'Aristotelian essentialism' is the doctrine of essences not relative to specifications. | |
From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], III) | |
A reaction: In other words, they are so-called 'real essences', understood as de re. Quine says essences are all de dicto, and relative to some specification. I vote for Aristotle. |
11978 | Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis] |
Full Idea: Just as a sentence is necessary if it holds in all worlds, so it is causally necessary if it holds in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature. | |
From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], V) | |
A reaction: I don't believe in the so-called 'laws of nature', so I'm not buying that. Is there no distinction in Lewis's view between those sentences which must hold, and those which happen to hold universally? |
11979 | It doesn't take the whole of a possible Humphrey to win the election [Lewis] |
Full Idea: Even if Humphrey is a modal continuant, it doesn't take the whole of him to do such things as winning. | |
From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], Post B) | |
A reaction: This responds to Kripke's famous example, that people only care about what happens to themselves, and not to some 'counterpart' of themselves. |
16994 | Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis] |
Full Idea: Probably Humphrey could not care less whether someone else, no matter how much resembling him, would have been victorious in another possible world. Thus Lewis's view seems even more bizarre that the usual transworld identification it replaces. | |
From: comment on David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity notes and addenda note 13 | |
A reaction: I begin to see this as a devastating reply to a theory I previously found quite congenial. |
11974 | Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis] |
Full Idea: Your counterparts resemble you closely in content and context in important respects. They resemble you more closely than do the other things in their worlds. But they are not really you. | |
From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], I) | |
A reaction: It is a dilemma. If my counterpart were exactly me, I couldn't contemplate possibly losing a leg, or my sanity. But if my counterpart isn't exactly me, then I don't have much interest in its fate. Only essences can save us here. Cf. me tomorrow. |
11975 | If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis] |
Full Idea: If whatever thing in world w6 it is that resembles you more closely than anything else in w6 is nevertheless quite unlike you; nothing in w6 resembles you at all closely. If so, you have no counterpart in w6. | |
From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], I) | |
A reaction: This is the nub, because the whole theory rests on deciding whether two things resemble sufficiently 'closely'. But then we need a criterion of closeness, so we must start talking about which properties matter. Essences loom. |
11977 | Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis] |
Full Idea: An essential attribute of something is an attribute it shares with all its counterparts. | |
From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], III) | |
A reaction: I don't like this. It ties essence entirely to identity, but I think essence precedes identity. Essence is a nexus of causal and explanatory powers which bestows an identity on each thing. But essence might be unstable, and identity with it. |
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. |
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'. |