Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Locke on Human Understanding', 'Dialektik' and 'Thinking About Mechanisms'

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21 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: Activities can be identified spatiotemporally, and individuated by rate, duration, and types of entity and property that engage in them. They also have modes of operation, directionality, polarity, energy requirements and a range.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
     A reaction: This is their attempt at making 'activity' one of the two central concepts of ontology, along with 'entity'. A helpful analysis. It just seems to be one way of slicing the cake.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: It is not the penicillin that causes the pneumonia to disappear, but what the penicillin does.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.1)
     A reaction: This is a very neat example for illustrating how we slip into 'entity' talk, when the reality we are addressing actually concerns processes. Without the 'what it does', penicillin can't participate in causation at all.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
7720 Two things can only resemble one another in some respect, and that may reintroduce a universal [Lowe]
     Full Idea: A problem for resemblance nominalism is that in saying that two particulars 'resemble' one another, it is necessary to specify in what respect they do so (e.g. colour, shape, size), and this threatens to reintroduce what appears to be talk of universals.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7)
     A reaction: We see resemblance between faces instantly, long before we can specify the 'respects' of the resemblance. This supports the Humean hard-wired view of resemblance, rather than some appeal to Platonic universals.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
7712 On substances, Leibniz emphasises unity, Spinoza independence, Locke relations to qualities [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Later philosophers emphasised different strands of Aristotle's concept of substances: Leibniz (in his theory of monads) emphasised their unity; Spinoza emphasised their ontological independence; Locke emphasised their role in relation to qualities.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Note that this Aristotelian idea had not been jettisoned in the late seventeenth century, unlike other Aristotelianisms. I think it is only with the success of atomism in chemistry that the idea of substance is forced to recede.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
16562 We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: The intelligibility of a phenomenon consists in the mechanisms being portrayed in terms of a field's bottom out entities and activities.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7)
     A reaction: In other words, we understand complex things by reducing them to things we do understand. It would, though, be illuminating to see a nest of interconnected activities, even if we understood none of them.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
7710 Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe]
     Full Idea: According to one school of thought, perception is simply a mode of belief-acquisition,and there is no reason to suppose that any element of sensation is literally involved in perception.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Blindsight would be an obvious supporting case for this view. I think this point is crucial in understanding what is wrong with Jackson's 'knowledge argument' (involving Mary, see Idea 7377). Sensation gives knowledge, so it can't be knowledge.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
7711 Science requires a causal theory - perception of an object must be an experience caused by the object [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Only a causal theory of perception will respect the facts of physiology and physics ...meaning a theory which maintains that for a subject to perceive a physical object the subject should enjoy some appropriate perceptual experience caused by the object.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.3)
     A reaction: If I hallucinate an object, then presumably I am not allowed to say that I 'perceive' it, but that seems to make the causal theory an idle tautology. If we are in virtual reality then there aren't any objects.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16563 The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: It is not regularities that explain but the activities that sustain the regularities.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7)
     A reaction: Good, but we had better not characterise the 'activities' in terms of regularities.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
16555 Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: It is common to speak of functions as properties 'had by' entities, …but they should rather be understood in terms of the activities by virtue of which entities contribute to the workings of a mechanism.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
     A reaction: I'm certainly quite passionately in favour of cutting down on describing the world almost entirely in terms of entities which have properties. An 'activity', though, is a bit of an elusive concept.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
16528 Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: One should not think of mechanisms as exclusively mechanical (push-pull) systems.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1)
     A reaction: The difficulty seems to be that you could broaden the concept of 'mechanism' indefinitely, so that it covered history, mathematics, populations, cultural change, and even mathematics. Where to stop?
16529 Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular change from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1)
     A reaction: This is their initial formal definition of a mechanism. Note that a mere 'activity' can be included. Presumably the mechanism might have an outcome that was not the intended outcome. Does a random element disqualify it? Are hands mechanisms?
16530 A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: To give a description of a mechanism for a phenomenon is to explain that phenomenon, i.e. to explain how it was produced.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1)
     A reaction: To 'show how' something happens needs a bit of precisification. It is probably analytic that 'showing how' means 'revealing the mechanism', though 'mechanism' then becomes the tricky concept.
16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: We emphasise the activities in mechanisms. This is explicitly dualist. Substantivalists speak of entities with dispositions to act. Process ontologists reify activities and try to reduce entities to processes. We try to capture both intuitions.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3)
     A reaction: [A quotation of selected fragments] The problem here seems to be the raising of an 'activity' to a central role in ontology, when it doesn't seem to be primitive, and will typically be analysed in a variety of ways.
16559 Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: Nested hierachical descriptions of mechanisms typically bottom out in lowest level mechanisms. …Bottoming out is relative …the explanation comes to an end, and description of lower-level mechanisms would be irrelevant.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.1)
     A reaction: This seems to me exactly the right story about mechanism, and it is a story I am associating with essentialism. The relevance is ties to understanding. The lower level is either fully understood, or totally baffling.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
16564 There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: There are four bottom-out kinds of activities: geometrico-mechanical, electro-chemical, electro-magnetic and energetic. These are abstract means of production that can be fruitfully applied in particular cases to explain phenomena.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7)
     A reaction: I like that. It gives a nice core for a metaphysics for physicalists. I suspect that 'mechanical' can be reduced to something else, and that 'energetic' will disappear in the final story.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
16561 We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: Abstractions may be constructed by taking an exemplary case or instance and removing detail.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.3)
     A reaction: I love 'removing detail'. That's it. Simple. I think this process is the basis of our whole capacity to formulate abstract concepts. Forget Frege - he's just describing the results of the process. How do we decide what is 'detail'? Essentialism!
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
7714 Personal identity is a problem across time (diachronic) and at an instant (synchronic) [Lowe]
     Full Idea: There is the question of the identity of a person over or across time ('diachronic' personal identity), and there is also the question of what makes for personal identity at a time ('synchronic' personal identity).
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This seems to me to be the first and most important distinction in the philosophy of personal identity, and they regularly get run together. Locke, for example, has an account of synchronic identity, which is often ignored. It applies to objects too.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
7715 Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe]
     Full Idea: 'Mentalese' would be neither conventional nor a means of public communication so that even to call it a language is seriously misleading.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7)
     A reaction: It is, however, supposed to contain symbolic representations which are then used as tokens for computation, so it seems close to a language, if (for example) symbolic logic or mathematics were accepted as languages. But who understands it?
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
7722 If meaning is mental pictures, explain "the cat (or dog!) is NOT on the mat" [Lowe]
     Full Idea: If meaning is a private mental picture, what does 'the cat is NOT on the mat' mean, and how does it differ from 'the dog is not on the mat?'.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Locke on Human Understanding [1995], Ch.7)
     A reaction: Not insurmountable. We picture an empty mat, combined with a cat (or whatever) located somewhere else. A mental 'picture' of something shouldn't be contrued as a single image in a neat black frame.
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique
20959 Concepts are only analytic once the predicate is absorbed into the subject [Schleiermacher]
     Full Idea: The difference between analytic and synthetic judgements is an unimportant fluid one. 'Ice melts' is analytic if it is already taken up into the concept of ice, and synthetic if not yet taken up. It is just a different state of the formation of concepts.
     From: Friedrich Schleiermacher (Dialektik [1833], p.563), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 8 'Scientific'
     A reaction: [compressed] I wonder if Quine ever encountered this quotation. The idea refers to Kant's notion of analyticity, and makes the good point that predicates only become 'contained in the subject' once the situation is very familiar.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16558 Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
     Full Idea: The traditional notion of a law of nature has few, if any, applications in neurobiology or molecular biology.
     From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.2)
     A reaction: This is a simple and self-evident fact, and bad news for anyone who want to build their entire ontology around laws of nature. I take such a notion to be fairly empty, except as a convenient heuristic device.