Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'On Recent German Literature. Fragments' and 'The Making of a Philosopher'

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

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
20947 Thoughts are learnt through words, so language shows the limits and shape of our knowledge [Herder]
     Full Idea: If it is true that we cannot think without thoughts, and that we learn to think through words: then language gives the whole of human knowledge its limits and outline.
     From: Johann Gottfried Herder (On Recent German Literature. Fragments [1767], p.373), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy
     A reaction: Deomonstrating that Frege's famous 1884 'linguistic turn', immortalised by Dummett, was actually the continuation of a long focus on language in German philosophy. Non-verbal animals very obviously think.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind
4691 If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn]
     Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech.
     From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 3. Meaning as Speaker's Intention
4690 If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn]
     Full Idea: The importance of Grice's analysis of speaker meaning is that it offers the prospect of analysing the whole phenomenon of linguistic meaning in terms of propositional attitudes… thus turning semantics into a department of the philosophy of mind.
     From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 5)
     A reaction: Although meaning being truth conditions is the most cited theory, the reduction of semantics to an aspect of mind also seems almost orthodox now. But how do the symbols 'represent' the attitudes?
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.