Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'What is so bad about Contradictions?' and 'On Mental Entities'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction

9123	Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen]
	Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in.
	From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3
	A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'?

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems

21686	Sense-data are dubious abstractions, with none of the plausibility of tables [Quine]
	Full Idea: The notion of pure sense datum is a pretty tenuous abstraction, a good deal more conjectural than the notion of an external object, a table or a sheep.
	From: Willard Quine (On Mental Entities [1952], p.225)
	A reaction: This seems to sum up the view of sense-data held by the generation after Russell and Moore. Ayer still talks about them, but Russell had already given them up. The simple challenge is - what is the evidence for their existence? Cf innate ideas.

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism

21685	Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine]
	Full Idea: The crucial insight of empiricism is that any evidence for science has its end points in the senses. This insight remains valid, but it is an insight which comes after physics, physiology, and psychology, not before.
	From: Willard Quine (On Mental Entities [1952], p.225)
	A reaction: Interesting. I think Hume and co. were probably outlining essential presuppositions and contraints which must be accepted by science. Quine offers empiricism as more like a description of science (with success as its authority?).

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

16764	The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
	Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted.
	From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
	A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763.