7 ideas
| 8132 | We now have a much more sophisticated understanding of logical form in language [Burge] |
| Full Idea: The second half of the twentieth century has seen the development of a vastly more sophisticated sense of logical form, as applied to natural languages. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.462) | |
| A reaction: Burge cites this as one of the three big modern developments (along with the critique of logical positivism, and direct reference/anti-individualism). Vagueness may be the last frontier for this development. |
| 9545 | Late in life Frege abandoned logicism, and saw the source of arithmetic as geometrical [Frege, by Chihara] |
| Full Idea: Near the end of his life, Frege completely abandoned his logicism, and came to the conclusion that the source of our arithmetical knowledge is what he called 'the Geometrical Source of Knowledge'. | |
| From: report of Gottlob Frege (Sources of Knowledge of Mathematics [1922]) by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics Intro n3 | |
| A reaction: We have, rather crucially, lost touch with the geometrical origins of arithmetic (such as 'square' numbers), which is good news for the practice of mathematics, but probably a disaster for the philosophy of the subject. |
| 8126 | Anti-individualism says the environment is involved in the individuation of some mental states [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Anti-individualism is the view that not all of an individual's mental states and events can be type-individuated independently of the nature of the entities in the individual's physical or social environment environment. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.453) | |
| A reaction: While the Twin Earth experiment emphasises the physical environment, Burge has been responsible for emphasising the social environment. The suspicion is that the whole concept of 'individual' minds will collapse on this view. |
| 8127 | Broad concepts suggest an extension of the mind into the environment (less computer-like) [Burge] |
| Full Idea: Certain thought experiments made trouble for standard functionalism, which limits input/output to the surface of an individual; proposals to extend this into the environment reduces the reliance on a computer paradigm, but increases complexity. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.454) | |
| A reaction: [He has the Twin Earth experiment in mind] The jury is out on this, but it looks a bit of a slippery slope. Accounts of action and responsibility need a fairly sharp concept of an individual. Externalism begins to look like just a new scepticism. |
| 8129 | Anti-individualism may be incompatible with some sorts of self-knowledge [Burge] |
| Full Idea: The idea of anti-individualism raised problems about self-knowledge. The question is whether anti-individualism is compatible with some sort of authoritative or privileged warrant for certain types of self-knowledge. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.457) | |
| A reaction: [See under 'Nature of Minds' for 'Anti-individualism'] The thought is that if your mind is not entirely in your head, you can no longer be an expert on it. It might go the other way: obviously we can be self-experts, so anti-individualism is wrong. |
| 8131 | Some qualities of experience, like blurred vision, have no function at all [Burge] |
| Full Idea: There appear to be qualitative aspects of experience that have no function in the life of the organism. They constitute dysfunction or noise. Blurriness in a visual experience is an example. | |
| From: Tyler Burge (Philosophy of Mind: 1950-2000 [2005], p.460) | |
| A reaction: The best account of blurred vision would seem to be adverbial - I see 'in a blurred way' (nay, blurredly). Hence maybe blurred vision is functional, but it just isn't functioning very well. |
| 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. |