7 ideas
19393 | What is not active is nothing [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: We can now show from the inner truths of metaphysics that what is not active is nothing. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (True Method in Philosophy and Theology [1686], p.64) | |
A reaction: This is Leibniz's rebellion against the Cartesian idea that all that matters for natural existence is spatial extension. I agree (tentatively) with Leibniz's vision of nature here. Modern physics reveals a seething turmoil beneath the placid exterior. |
12580 | Experiences have no conceptual content [Evans, by Greco] |
Full Idea: In Evans's work experiences are conceived of as not having a conceptual content at all. | |
From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal | |
A reaction: I presume it is this view which provoked McDowell's contrary view in 'Mind and World'. I say this is a job for neuroscience, and I struggle to see what philosophical questions hang on the outcome. I think I side with Evans. |
7643 | We have far fewer colour concepts than we have discriminations of colour [Evans] |
Full Idea: Do we really understand the proposal that we have as many colour concepts as there are shades colour that we can sensibly discriminate? | |
From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 7.5) | |
A reaction: This is the argument (rejected by McDowell) that experience cannot be conceptual because experience is too rich. We should not confuse lack of concepts with lack of words. I may have a concept of a colour between two shades, but no word for it. |
23794 | Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte] |
Full Idea: Evans introduced the idea that there are some representational states, for example perceptual experiences, which have content that is nonconceptual. | |
From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 3.4 | |
A reaction: McDowell famously disagree, and whether all experience is inherently conceptualised is a main debate from that period. Hard to see how it could be settled, but I incline to McDowell, because minimal perception hardly counts as 'experience'. |
16366 | The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans] |
Full Idea: If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'. | |
From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3 | |
A reaction: Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one. |
12575 | Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them [Evans, by Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Evans's 'Generality Constraint' says that if a thinker is capable of attitudes to the content Fa and possesses the singular concept b, then he is capable of having attitudes to the content Fb. | |
From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 4.3) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.1 | |
A reaction: So having an attitude becomes the test of whether one possesses a concept. I suppose if one says 'You know you've got a concept when you are capable of thinking about it', that is much the same thing. Sounds fine. |
14409 | I am a presentist, and all language and common sense supports my view [Bigelow] |
Full Idea: I am a presentist: nothing exists which is not present. Everyone believed this until the nineteenth century; it is writing into the grammar of natural languages; it is still assumed in everyday life, even by philosophers who deny it. | |
From: John Bigelow (Presentism and Properties [1996], p.36), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Truth and Ontology | |
A reaction: The most likely deniers of presentism seem to be physicists and cosmologists who have overdosed on Einstein. On the whole I vote for presentism, but what justifies truths about the past and future. Traces existing in the present? |