Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge' and 'Does Consciousness Exist?'

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

6 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification
9329 Justification is coherence with a background system; if irrefutable, it is knowledge [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: Justification is coherence with a background system which, when irrefutable, converts to knowledge.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
     A reaction: A problem (as the theory stands here) would be whether you have to be aware that the coherence is irrefutable, which would seem to require a pretty powerful intellect. If one needn't be aware of the irrefutability, how does it help my justification?
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
9286 Consciousness is not a stuff, but is explained by the relations between experiences [James]
     Full Idea: Consciousness connotes a kind of external relation, and not a special stuff or way of being. The peculiarity of our experiences, that they not only are, but are known, is best explained by their relations to one another, the relations being experiences.
     From: William James (Does Consciousness Exist? [1904], §3)
     A reaction: This view has suddenly caught people's interest. It might be better than the higher/lower relationship, which seems to leave the basic problem untouched. Does a whole network of relations between experiences gradually 'add up' to consciousness?
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind
9330 Generalization seems to be more fundamental to minds than spotting similarities [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: There is a level of generalization we share with other animals in the responses to objects that suggest that generalization is a more fundamental operation of the mind than the observation of similarities.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
     A reaction: He derives this from Reid (1785) - Lehrer's hero - who argued against Hume that we couldn't spot similarities if we hadn't already generalized to produce the 'respect' of the similarity. Interesting. I think Reid must be right.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection
9328 All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
     A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
9285 'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul' [James]
     Full Idea: 'Consciousness' is the name of a nonentity. ..Those who cling to it are clinging to a mere echo, the faint rumour left behind by the disappearing 'soul' upon the air of philosophy. ..I deny that it stands for an entity, but it does stand for a function.
     From: William James (Does Consciousness Exist? [1904], Intro)
     A reaction: This kind of view is often treated as being preposterous, but I think it is correct. No one is denying the phenomenology, but it is the ontology which is at stake. Either you are a substance dualist, or mind must be eliminated as an 'entity'.
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.