Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', '64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals' and 'Does Consciousness Exist?'

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6 ideas

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?
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 / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
1477 Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Manliness is not a natural human attribute, otherwise women would be just as brave. It is due to pressure from laws, and this pressure has no free will, but is a slave of convention and criticism.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 988c)
     A reaction: This is the first glimmerings of seeing gender as a cultural creation, rather than as a fact. Presumably he takes the same view of some of the supposed feminine virtues.
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.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / e. Role of pleasure
1478 Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Animals of both sexes cease to have intercourse after impregnation; that shows how little animals value pleasure, and that nature is all that counts.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)
     A reaction: A famous monkey had an implant to stimulate pleasure, and a button to trigger it. It apparently would have starved to death rather than release the button. Animal sex is dull?
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality
1479 Animals have not been led into homosexuality, because they value pleasure very little [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Because animals value pleasure very little, they have not been led into sex between males or between females.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)