3159
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Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett]
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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.
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From:
Daniel C. Dennett (Brainstorms:Essays on Mind and Psychology [1978], p.7?)
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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'.
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18006
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Chomsky's 'interpretative semantics' says syntax comes first, and is then interpreted [Chomsky, by Magidor]
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Full Idea:
Chomsky and his followers (whose position was labelled 'interpretative semantics') claimed that a sentence is first assigned a syntactic structure by an autonomous syntactic module, and this structure is then provided as input for semantic interpretation.
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From:
report of Noam Chomsky (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax [1965]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.3
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A reaction:
This certainly doesn't fit the experience of introspecting speech, but then I suppose good pianists focus entirely on the music, and overlook the finger movements which have obvious priority. But I don't know the syntax of the sentence when I begin it.
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20713
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God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
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From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
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A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
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