49 ideas
5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Any good philosophy will need to offer wisdom about who we are as well as about how we ought to be. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 14) | |
A reaction: This sop should be accepted gratefully by fans of bioethics, who seem inclined to think that describing 'how we are' is all that needs to be said. Maybe the key wisdom lies in the relationship between the 'is' and the 'ought' of human nature. |
5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The inability of science to provide ethical wisdom is partly responsible for our resistance to the scientific image. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 14) | |
A reaction: This seems right. A.J. Ayer, for example, declared "I believe in science", and his account of ethics was vacuously nihilistic. A description of the mechanisms of moral life is not the same as ethical wisdom. |
8868 | Objective truth arises from interpersonal communication [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The source of the concept of objective truth is interpersonal communication. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209) | |
A reaction: This is a distinctively Davidsonian idea, arising out of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. We could go a step further, and just say that 'objectivity is a social concept'. Davidson more or less pleads guilty to pragmatism in this essay. |
1708 | In "Callias is just/not just/unjust", which of these are contraries? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Take, for example, "Callias is just", "Callias is not just", and "Callias is unjust"; which of these are contraries? | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a31) |
1703 | It is necessary that either a sea-fight occurs tomorrow or it doesn't, though neither option is in itself necessary [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one not to take place tomorrow - though it is necessary for one to take place OR not take place tomorrow. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a30) |
1704 | Statements are true according to how things actually are [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Statements are true according to how things actually are. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a33) |
22272 | Aristotle's later logic had to treat 'Socrates' as 'everything that is Socrates' [Potter on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: When Aristotle moved from basic name+verb (in 'De Interpretatione') to noun+noun logic...names had to be treated as special cases, so that 'Socrates' is treated as short for 'everything that is Socrates'. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Supp' | |
A reaction: Just the sort of rewriting that Russell introduced for definite descriptions. 'Twas ever the logicians' fate to shoehorn ordinary speech into awkward containers. |
9405 | Square of Opposition: not both true, or not both false; one-way implication; opposite truth-values [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Square of Opposition: horizontals - 'contraries' can't both be true, and 'subcontraries' can't both be false; verticals - 'subalternatives' have downwards-only implication; diagonals - 'contradictories' have opposite truth values. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12-13) | |
A reaction: This is still used in modern discussion (e.g. by Stalnaker against Kripke), and there is a modal version of it (Fitting and Mendelsohn p.7). Corners read: 'All F are G', 'No F are G', 'Some F are G' and 'Some F are not G'. |
9730 | Modal Square 3: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contradictories' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 3: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12c) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9728 | Modal Square 1: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contraries' of □¬P and ¬◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 1: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contraries (not both true) of 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12a) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9729 | Modal Square 2: ¬□¬P and ◊P are 'subcontraries' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 2: 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P' are the subcontraries (not both false) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12b) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9731 | Modal Square 4: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'contradictories' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 4: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12d) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9732 | Modal Square 5: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 5: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12e) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
9733 | Modal Square 6: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 6: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12f) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
21593 | In talking of future sea-fights, Aristotle rejects bivalence [Aristotle, by Williamson] |
Full Idea: Unlike Aristotle, Stoics did not reject Bivalence for future contingencies; it is true or false that there will be a sea-fight tomorrow. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a31) by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 1.2 | |
A reaction: I'd never quite registered this simple account of the sea-fight. As Williamson emphasises, one should not lightly reject the principle of bivalence. Has Aristotle entered a slippery slope? Stoics disagreed with Aristotle. |
1701 | A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 17a01) |
1706 | Non-existent things aren't made to exist by thought, because their non-existence is part of the thought [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not true to say that what is not, since it is thought about, is something that is; for what is thought about it is not that it is, but that it is not. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 21a31) | |
A reaction: At least there has been one philosopher who was quite clear about the distinction between a thought and what the thought is about (its content). Often forgotten! |
1707 | Maybe necessity and non-necessity are the first principles of ontology [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Perhaps the necessary and non-necessary are first principles of everything's either being or not being. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a18) | |
A reaction: Is that 'first' in time, or in priority? If they are the grounds of being, how could there ever be non-necessary existents? Why would necessary being permit intruders? |
8867 | A belief requires understanding the distinctions of true-and-false, and appearance-and-reality [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Having a belief demands in addition appreciating the contrast between true belief and false, between appearance and reality, mere seeming and being. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209) | |
A reaction: This sets the bar very high for belief (never mind knowledge), and seems to imply that animals don't have beliefs. How should we describe their cognitive states then? I would say these criteria only apply to actual knowledge. |
10347 | Objectivity is intersubjectivity [Davidson] |
Full Idea: An entity is objective in so far as it is intersubjective. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]), quoted by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.10 | |
A reaction: This thought baffled me until I saw it in the context of socialised epistemology. Effectively objectivity is subsumed under justification, which in turn is seen in a social context, not private to individuals. |
5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Explanation does not entail prediction. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 73n) | |
A reaction: Presumably the inverse of this is also true, as we might be able to predict through pure induction, without knowing why something happened. We predict that smoking is likely to cause cancer. Complex things might be explicable but unpredictable. |
5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: In the seventeenth century the dominant idea that causation is collisionlike made mental causation almost impossible to envision. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.136) | |
A reaction: Interesting. This makes Descartes' interaction theory look rather bold, and Leibniz's and Malebranche's rejection of it understandable. Personally I still think of causation as collisionlike, except that the collisions are of very very tiny objects. |
8866 | If we know other minds through behaviour, but not our own, we should assume they aren't like me [Davidson] |
Full Idea: If the mental states of others are known only through their behavioral and other outward manifestations, while this is not true of our own mental states, why should we think our own mental states are anything like those of others? | |
From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.207) | |
A reaction: His point is that if you seriously doubt other minds, you should follow through on the implications. But that is to treat it as a theory about other minds, rather an a sceptical worry. Descartes didn't walk into walls while writing Meditation 1. |
10346 | Knowing other minds rests on knowing both one's own mind and the external world [Davidson, by Dummett] |
Full Idea: Davidson argues that knowledge of other minds presupposes knowledge of one's own mind, and that there is no knowledge of other minds without knowledge of the external world. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]) by Michael Dummett - Common Sense and Physics Ch.10 | |
A reaction: Davidson't argument is actually hard to swallow because it is so long and complex. Compressing the point makes it begin to sound like a variant of the argument from analogy. |
5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: It is easy to explain why certain brain events are uniquely experienced by you subjectively: only you are properly hooked up to your own nervous system to have your own experiences. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 87) | |
A reaction: This is in reply to Nagel's oft quoted claim that mind can only be understood as "what it is like to be" that mind. I agree with Flanagan, and it is nice illustration of how philosophers can confuse themselves with high-sounding questions. |
5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: We only have a sense of our self as continuous, but not as exactly the same. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.178) | |
A reaction: Russell said this too, and it seems to me to be right. Personal identity is far too imprecise for me to assert that I remember my ten-year-old self as being identical to me now. Only physical objects like teddy bears can pass that test. |
5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The self is an abstraction from the story of a person's life that isolates and magnifies the experiences, traits and aspirations that are assigned importance. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.240) | |
A reaction: Personally I am inclined to see personal identity as the central controller of brain activity, the aspect of the biological machine which keeps all the mental events focused on what matters, which is health, safety and happiness. |
5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: It is a bad mistake to think we are born with a self; the self develops, and acquiring it requires living in the world. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.260) | |
A reaction: I think this is wrong. He is mistaking a complex cultural concept of the self as the subject for autobiography etc. for the basic biological self which even small animals must have if their brains are to serve any useful purpose in their lives. |
5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: According to Buddhism, the idea of a permanent, constant self is an illusion, and a morally dangerous one. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.161) | |
A reaction: We are familiar with the idea that it might be an illusion, but I am unconvinced by 'morally dangerous'. If you drop both free will and personal identity, I can't see any sort of focus for moral life left, but I am willing to be convinced. |
5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The standard view of free will is that I have something like complete control over what I do. A stronger view (not widely held) is that I also have complete control over what I think and what I feel. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 60n) | |
A reaction: To claim free control of feelings looks optimistic, but it does look as if we can decide to think about something, such as a philosophical problem. Deciding what to say comes somewhere between thought and action. |
5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Free will is said to give us self-control, self-expression, individuality, reasons-sensitivity, rational deliberation, rational accountability, moral accountability, the capacity to do otherwise, unpredictability, and political freedom. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.104) | |
A reaction: Nice list. His obvious challenge is to either say we can live happily without some of these things, or else show how we can have them without 'free will'. Personally I agree with Flanagan that we meet the challenge. |
5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Most people believe we have free will, and that this consists in the ability to circumvent natural law. The trouble is that the only device ever philosophically invented that can do this sort of job is an incorporeal soul or mind. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], Pref) | |
A reaction: I think this is exactly right. We currently have a western world full of people who have rejected dualism, but still cling on to free will, because they think morality depends on it. I think morality depends on personal identity, but not on free will. |
5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: It is unimaginable to me that, despite the feeling that we control what we do, such a strong conception of ourselves as unmoved movers would have been added to our self-image unless we had first conceived of God along these lines. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.107) | |
A reaction: I think this is right, though there are signs in fifth century Greece of contradictory evidence. The 'unmoved mover' seems unformulated before Plato's 'Laws' (idea 1423), but there is an implied belief in free will a hundred years earlier. |
5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: I would say that that my consciousness doesn't seem either physical or non-physical, ..but the belief that the mind is non-physical partly took hold because that fits well with thinking of human agents as free. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.102) | |
A reaction: I think this is right. I personally think there is no such thing as free will, and that belief in it has been the single greatest delusion amongst philosophers (and others) for the last two thousand years. Dualism has now gone, and free will is next. |
5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Behaviourism was notorious in its heyday for having nothing to say about mental causation. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.141) | |
A reaction: This is a bit unfair, as Ryle (idea 2622, following Spinoza, 4862) was one of the first to point out the paradox of 'double causation'. You have to be a mentalist to worry about mental causation, and eliminativists aren't bothered. |
5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Although everyone thinks cars and bodies obey the principles of causation, no one thinks it a deficiency that we don't know strict laws of automechanics or anatomy. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 65) | |
A reaction: This attacks Davidson's claim that there are no strict psycho-physical laws, and I agree with Flanagan. Huge dreams of free will and human dignity are being pinned on the flimsy point that we have no strict laws here. But brains are very complicated. |
5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: One may be committed to the truth of physicalism without being committed to the claim that the essence of an experience is captured fully by a description of its neural realiser. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 90) | |
A reaction: This is a reply to the Leibniz Mill question (idea 2109) about what is missing from a materialist view. Flanagan's point is that just as the essence of a panorama is the view from the hill, so the essence of consciousness requires you to be that brain. |
5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: One can question the idea that emotions are non-rational, fickle and flighty; on the contrary, emotions normally seem to be very apt. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 16) | |
A reaction: This is the modern view of emotion which is emerging from neuroscience, which is greatly superior to traditional views, apart from Aristotle, who felt that wisdom and virtue arose precisely when emotions were apt for the situation. |
2337 | For Aristotle meaning and reference are linked to concepts [Aristotle, by Putnam] |
Full Idea: In 'De Interpretatione' Aristotle laid out an enduring theory of reference and meaning, in which we understand a word or any other sign by associating that word with a concept. This concept determines what the word refers to. | |
From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Hilary Putnam - Representation and Reality 2 p.19 | |
A reaction: Sounds right to me, despite all this Wittgensteinian stuff about beetles in boxes. When you meet a new technical term in philosophy, you must struggle to fully grasp the concept it proposes. |
13763 | Spoken sounds vary between people, but are signs of affections of soul, which are the same for all [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, ...and just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of - affections of the soul - are the same for all. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 16a03-08) | |
A reaction: Loux identifies this passage as the source of the 'conceptualist' view of propositions, which I immediately identify with. The view that these propositions are 'the same for all' is plausible for normal objects, but dubious for complex abstractions. |
1705 | It doesn't have to be the case that in opposed views one is true and the other false [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is not necessary that of every affirmation and opposite negation one should be true and the other false. For what holds for things that are does not hold for things that are not but may possibly be or not be. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a39) | |
A reaction: Thus even if Bivalence holds, and the only truth-values are T and F, it doesn't follow that Excluded Middle holds, which says that every proposition must have one of those two values. |
8870 | Content of thought is established through communication, so knowledge needs other minds [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Until a baseline has been established by communication with someone else, there is no point is saying one's own thoughts have a propositional content. Hence knowledge of another mind is essential all thought and all knowledge. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.213) | |
A reaction: This really is building a skyscraper on the slightly shaky claims of the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). Animals are so important in discussions of this kind. Is an albatross more or less devoid of thought and belief? |
8869 | The principle of charity attributes largely consistent logic and largely true beliefs to speakers [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Concerning charity, the Principle of Coherence seeks logical consistency in the thought of the speaker, and the Principle of Correspondence seeks a similar response to features of the world to that of an interpreter. The speaker has logic and true belief. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.211) | |
A reaction: Davidson adds a Kantian commitment to pure and universal reason to the very sceptical framework created by Quine. I agree with Davidson, but it seems more like faith than like an argument or an empirical observation. |
5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: There are two main pictures of the good person: there is the 'good character', and there is the 'principled actor'. ..The first picture is non-intellectualist, and the second is intellectualist. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.145) | |
A reaction: The second ideal elevates the principle itself above the actor who carries it out. Presumably consistency is a virtue, so a good character will at least pay some attention to principles. A good magistrate comes out the same in both views. |
5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.301n) | |
A reaction: I take cognitivism to be (strictly) the view that morals are knowable in principle. Our intellects might not be up to the task (and so we might have to ask the gods what is right). There is also the possibility that morals might be known by intuition. |
5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Ethics is the normative science that studies the objective conditions that lead to flourishing of persons. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 17) | |
A reaction: This is a nice slogan for the virtue theory account of the nature of ethics. I think it is the view with which I agree. I am intrigued that he has smuggled the word 'science' in, which is a nice challenge to conventional views of science. |
1702 | Things may be necessary once they occur, but not be unconditionally necessary [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: To say that everything that is, is of necessity, when it is, is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity. | |
From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a25) |
5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of a cycle of rebirths and reincarnations that are normally required before one achieve nirvana was only proposed in the eighth century CE, and then spread like wildfire among Hindus and, to a lesser extent, among Buddhists. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.166n) | |
A reaction: Intriguing. Plato had proposed it in the fourth century BCE. Presumably Hindus had always been dualists, and then suddenly saw and exciting possibility that followed from it. The doctrine strikes me as (to put it mildly) implausible. |
5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The idea of the soul could be easily trashed if science does not countenance essences, but science does countenance essences in the form of what are known as 'natural kinds' (such as water, salt and gold). | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.181) | |
A reaction: The existence of any essences at all does indeed make the existence of a soul naturally possible, but scientific natural kinds are usually postulated on a basis of chemical stability. Animals, for example, are no longer usually classified that way. |