13 ideas
6851 | We overvalue whether arguments are valid, and undervalue whether they are interesting [Monk] |
Full Idea: We encourage students to be concerned with whether an argument is valid or not, and we don't encourage them much to consider the question of whether the argument is interesting or not. | |
From: Ray Monk (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.16) | |
A reaction: What do you make of arguments which are very interesting, but (unfortunately) totally invalid? That said, this is a nice comment. A philosopher cannot contemplate too long or too deeply on the question of what is really 'interesting'. |
17505 | Using proper names properly doesn't involve necessary and sufficient conditions [Putnam] |
Full Idea: The important thing about proper names is that it would be ridiculous to think that having linguistic competence can be equated in their case with knowledge of a necessary and sufficient condition. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], II B) |
11908 | Putnam bases essences on 'same kind', but same kinds may not share properties [Mackie,P on Putnam] |
Full Idea: The only place for essentialism to come from in Putnam's semantic account is out of the 'same kind' relation. But if the same kind relation can be cashed out in terms that do not involve sharing properties (apart from 'being water') there is a gap. | |
From: comment on Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 10.4 | |
A reaction: [This is the criticism of Salmon and Mellor] See Mackie's discussion for details. I would always have thought that relations result from essences, so could never be used to define them. |
17508 | Science aims at truth, not at 'simplicity' [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Scientists are not trying to maximise some formal property of 'simplicity'; they are trying to maximise truth. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], III B) | |
A reaction: This seems to be aimed at the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis account of laws of nature, as the simplest axioms of experience. I'm with Putnam (as he was at this date). |
7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
Full Idea: If you define qualia as intrinsic properties of experiences considered in isolation from all their causes and effects, logically independent of all dispositional properties, then they are logically guaranteed to elude all broad functional analysis. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.8) | |
A reaction: This is a good point - it seems daft to reify qualia and imagine them dangling in mid-air with all their vibrant qualities - but that is a long way from saying there is nothing more to qualia than functional roles. Functions must be exlained too. |
7655 | The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett] |
Full Idea: All the work done by the imagined homunculus in the Cartesian Theater must be distributed among various lesser agencies in the brain, none of which is conscious. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Dennett's account crucially depends on consciousness being much more fragmentary than most philosophers claim it to be. It is actually full of joints, which can come apart. He may be right. |
7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
Full Idea: As long as your homunculi are more stupid and ignorant than the intelligent agent they compose, the nesting of homunculi within homunculi can be finite, bottoming out, eventually, with agents so unimpressive they can be replaced by machines. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: [Dennett first proposed this in 'Brainstorms' 1978]. This view was developed well by Lycan. I rate it as one of the most illuminating ideas in the modern philosophy of mind. All complex systems (like aeroplanes) have this structure. |
7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
Full Idea: I don't maintain, of course, that human consciousness does not exist; I maintain that it is not what people often think it is. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I consider Dennett to be as near as you can get to an eliminativist, but he is not stupid. As far as I can see, the modern philosopher's bogey-man, the true total eliminativist, simply doesn't exist. Eliminativists usually deny propositional attitudes. |
7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Neuro-science matters because - and only because - we have discovered that the many different neuromodulators and other chemical messengers that diffuse throughout the brain have functional roles that make important differences. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: I agree with Dennett that this is the true ground for pessimism about spectacular breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, rather than abstract concerns about irreducible features of the mind like 'qualia' and 'rationality'. |
17506 | I now think reference by the tests of experts is a special case of being causally connected [Putnam] |
Full Idea: In previous papers I suggested that the reference is fixed by a test known to experts; it now seems to me that this is just a special case of my use being causally connected to an introducing event. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], II C) | |
A reaction: I think he was probably right the first time, and has now wandered off course. |
6850 | Wittgenstein pared his life down in his search for decency [Monk] |
Full Idea: One of the most conspicuous things about Wittgenstein is that, on the ethics side, he pared his life down to the minimum, so as to make as central as possible his search for decency, the drive to be a decent person. | |
From: Ray Monk (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.14) | |
A reaction: It rather looks as if decency was quite an effort for him, as he had a rather waspish temperament, and people found it hard to get close to him. On the whole, though, he sounds like good company, as do nearly all the great philosophers. |
17507 | Natural kind stereotypes are 'strong' (obvious, like tiger) or 'weak' (obscure, like molybdenum) [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Natural kinds can be associated with 'strong' stereotypes (giving a strong picture of a typical member, like a tiger), or with 'weak' stereotypes (with no idea of a sufficient condition, such as molybdenum or elm). | |
From: Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973], II C) |
11904 | Express natural kinds as a posteriori predicate connections, not as singular terms [Putnam, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Putnam implies dispensing with the designation of natural kinds by singular terms in favour of the postulation of necessary but a posteriori connections between predicates. ...We might call this 'predicate essentialism', but not 'de re essentialism'. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (Explanation and Reference [1973]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 10.1 | |
A reaction: It is characteristic of modern discussion that the logical form of natural kind statements is held to be crucial, rather than an account of nature in any old ways that do the job. So do I prefer singular terms, or predicate-connections. Hm. |