6 ideas
| 23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason. | |
| From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15) | |
| A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!). |
| 15391 | A substance is, roughly, a basic being or subject at the foundation of reality [Robb] |
| Full Idea: A substance is a basic being, something at reality's foundation. What exactly this means is a matter of some controversy. Some philosophers think of substance as an ultimate subject, something that has properties but isn't a property. | |
| From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: This seems to capture the place of 'substance' in contemporary metaphysics. I think of 'substance' as a placeholder for some threatened account, even in Aristotle. |
| 15392 | If an object survives the loss of a part, complex objects can have autonomy over their parts [Robb] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes a whole can survive a loss of parts: the chair would still exist if it lost one of its legs. This seems to give complex objects a sort of autonomy over their parts. | |
| From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Ident') | |
| A reaction: There is then a puzzle as to how much loss of parts the whole can survive, and why. The loss of a major part could be devastating, so why do all wholes not exhibit this relation to all their parts? I demand rules, now! |
| 7880 | If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different [Papineau on Jackson] |
| Full Idea: An ornithological Mary might know everything theoretical about kestrels, but be blind from birth, then have her sight restored. She now knows "That bird eats mice", so visual kestrels must be ontologically distinct from theoretical ones. | |
| From: comment on Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 6.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice reductio, and I think this pinpoints best what is wrong with the knowledge argument. Knowledge, and the means of acquiring it, are two distinct things. When I see x, I don't acquire knowledge of x, AND knowledge of my seeing x. |
| 7378 | No one bothers to imagine what it would really be like to have ALL the physical information [Dennett on Jackson] |
| Full Idea: That Mary "has all the physical information" is not readily imaginable, so no one bothers. They just imagine she knows lots and lots - perhaps everything known today - but that is just a drop in the bucket. | |
| From: comment on Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 12.5 | |
| A reaction: I certainly don't see how we can rule out a priori the possibility that someone who really had all the physical knowledge might be able to infer the phenomenal properties of colour. |
| 7377 | Mary learns when she sees colour, so her complete physical information had missed something [Jackson] |
| Full Idea: It seems obvious that Mary will learn something about the world when she is released from her black-and-white room; but then it is inescapable that her previous knowledge was incomplete; she had all the physical information, so there is more to have. | |
| From: Frank Jackson (Epiphenomenal Qualia [1982], §1) | |
| A reaction: This is Jackson's famous 'knowledge argument', which seems to me misconceived. Since I don't think phenomenal colours are properties of objects (Idea 5456), Mary learns more about herself, and about her means of acquiring knowledge. |