Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology', 'Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge' and 'Classical Cosmology (frags)'

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6 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification

9329	Justification is coherence with a background system; if irrefutable, it is knowledge [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: Justification is coherence with a background system which, when irrefutable, converts to knowledge.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: A problem (as the theory stands here) would be whether you have to be aware that the coherence is irrefutable, which would seem to require a pretty powerful intellect. If one needn't be aware of the irrefutability, how does it help my justification?

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.

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind

9330	Generalization seems to be more fundamental to minds than spotting similarities [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: There is a level of generalization we share with other animals in the responses to objects that suggest that generalization is a more fundamental operation of the mind than the observation of similarities.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: He derives this from Reid (1785) - Lehrer's hero - who argued against Hume that we couldn't spot similarities if we hadn't already generalized to produce the 'respect' of the similarity. Interesting. I think Reid must be right.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection

9328	All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'.

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'.

27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology

5994	Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]
	Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning.
	From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out.