|
18470
|
Maybe truth-making is an unanalysable primitive, but we can specify principles for it [Smith,B]
|
|
Full Idea:
The signs are that truth-making is not analysable in terms of anything more primitive, but we need to be able to say more than just that. So we ought to consider it as specified by principles of truth-making.
|
|
From:
Barry Smith (Truth-maker Realism: response to Gregory [2000], p.20), quoted by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.5
|
|
A reaction:
This is the axiomatic approach to such problems - treat the target concept as an undefinable, unanalysable primitive, and then give rules for its connections. Maybe all metaphysics should work like that, with a small bunch of primitives.
|
|
19743
|
A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions [Clark/Chalmers]
|
|
Full Idea:
Beliefs are partly constituted by features of the environment. ....a notebook plays for one person the same role that memory plays for another. ...The information is reliably there, available to consciousness, and to guide action, just as belief is.
|
|
From:
A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §4)
|
|
A reaction:
This is the modern externalist approach to beliefs (along with broad content and external cognition systems). Not quite what we used to mean by beliefs, but we'll get used to it. I believe Plato wrote what it said in his books. Is memory just a role?
|
|
19741
|
If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers]
|
|
Full Idea:
If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognising as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process.
|
|
From:
A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §2)
|
|
A reaction:
In some sense they are obviously right that our cognitive activities spill out into books, calculators, record-keeping. It seems more like an invitation to shift the meaning of the word 'mind', than a proof that we have got it wrong.
|
|
19742
|
Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers]
|
|
Full Idea:
Many identify the cognitive with the conscious, and it seems far from plausible that consciousness extends outside the head in these cases. But not every cognitive process, at least on standard usage, is a conscious process.
|
|
From:
A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §3)
|
|
A reaction:
This gives you two sorts of externalism about mind to consider. No, three, if you say there is extended conceptual content, then extended cognition processes, then extended consciousness. Depends what you mean by 'consciousness'.
|