Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology', 'True to the Facts' and 'Martin Heidegger in conversation'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers

8188	Davidson takes truth to attach to individual sentences [Davidson, by Dummett]
	Full Idea: Davidson, by contrast to Frege, has taken truth as attaching to linguistic items, that is, to actual or hypothetical token sentences.
	From: report of Donald Davidson (True to the Facts [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Truth and the Past 1
	A reaction: My personal notion of truth is potentially applicable to animals, so this doesn't appeal to me. I am happy to think of animals as believing simple propositions that never get as far as language, and being right or wrong about them.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)

15584	I say the manifestation of Being needs humans, and humans only exist as reflected in Being [Heidegger]
	Full Idea: The fundamental thought of my thinking is precisely that Being, or the manifestation of Being, needs human beings and that, vice versa, human beings are only human beings if they are standing in the manifestation of Being.
	From: Martin Heidegger (Martin Heidegger in conversation [1969], p.82), quoted by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 5 'Signs'
	A reaction: I don't think I understand the second half of this, but I sense some sort of intuition that the consciousness of humans 'enlarges' Being, or bestows an identity on it, or some such thing.

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'.