Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Protocol Sentences' and 'Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason'

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7 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique
10486 If we are rebuilding our ship at sea, we should jettison some cargo [Boolos on Neurath]
     Full Idea: If we are sailors rebuilding our ship plank by plank on the open sea, then I know of some cargo we might want to jettison.
     From: comment on Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]) by George Boolos - Must We Believe in Set Theory? p.128
     A reaction: This may just be an assertion of Ockham's Razor, but the interest is that the Neurath image demands internal standards of economy etc, whereas reality itself seems to be a right mess.
8485 We must always rebuild our ship on the open sea; we can't reconstruct it properly in dry-dock [Neurath]
     Full Idea: We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship out on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in a dry-dock and reconstruct it there out of the best materials.
     From: Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.8
     A reaction: This is the classic statement of the anti-foundationalist picture of knowledge. It is often quoted by Quine. A tricky issue. I have a lot of sympathy with Bonjour's rationalist foundationalism.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
20034 Intentions must be mutually consistent, affirm appropriate means, and fit the agent's beliefs [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman's three main norms of intention are 'internal consistency' (between a person's intentions), 'means-end coherence' (the means must fit the end), and 'consistency with the agent's beliefs' (especially intending to do and believing you won't do).
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: These are controversial, but have set the agenda for modern non-reductive discussions of intention.
20033 Intentions are normative, requiring commitment and further plans [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Intentions involve normative commitments. We settle on intended courses, if there is no reason to reconsider them, and intentions put pressure on us to form further intentions in order to more efficiently coordinate our actions.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: [a compression of their summary] This distinguishes them from beliefs and desires, which contain no such normative requirements, even though they may point that way.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / b. Types of intention
20026 Intention is either the aim of an action, or a long-term constraint on what we can do [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: We need to distinguish intention as an aim or goal of actions, and intentions as a distinctive state of commitment to future action, a state that results from and subsequently constrains our practical endeavours as planning agents.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
     A reaction: I'm not sure how distinct these are, given the obvious possibility of intermediate stages, and the embracing of any available short-cut. If I could mow my lawn with one blink, I'd do it.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20032 Bratman rejected reducing intentions to belief-desire, because they motivate, and have their own standards [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman motivated the idea that intentions are psychologically real and not reducible to desire-belief complexes by observing that they are motivationally distinctive, and subject to their own unique standards of rational appraisal.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: If I thought my belief was a bit warped, and my desire morally corrupt, my higher self might refuse to form an intention. If so, then Bratman is onto something. But maybe my higher self has its own beliefs and desires.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
7667 There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin]
     Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius.
     From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
     A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny.