3 ideas
| 21757 | Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy is the supreme blossom - the concept - of the entire shape of history, the consciousness and the spiritual essence of the whole situation, the spirit of the age as the spirit present and aware of itself in thought. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01 | |
| A reaction: This sees philosophy as intrinsically historical, which is a founding idea for 'continental' philosophy. Analysis is tied to science, in which the history of the subject is seen as irrelevant to its truth. Does this mean we can't go back to Aristotle? |
| 12727 | It's impossible, but imagine a body carrying on normally, but with no mind [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If it could be supposed that a body exists without a mind, then a man would do everything in the same way as if he did not have a mind, and men would speak and write the same things, without knowing what they do. ...But this supposition is impossible. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Paper of December 1676 [1676], A6.3.400), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5 | |
| A reaction: This is clearly the zombie dream, three centuries before Robert Kirk's modern invention of the idea. Leibniz's reason for denying the possibility of zombies won't be the modern physicalist reason. |
| 22244 | 'Partial reference' is when the subject thinks two objects are one object [Field,H, by Recanati] |
| Full Idea: A subject's thought is about A, but, unbeknownst to the subject, B is substituted for A. Then there is Field's 'partial reference', because the subject's thought is still partially about A, even though they are following B. | |
| From: report of Hartry Field (Theory Change and the Indeterminacy of Reference [1973]) by François Recanati - Mental Files in Flux 2 | |
| A reaction: Used to interpret a well-known case: Wally says of Udo 'he needs a haircut'; Zach looks at someone else and says 'he sure does'. Recanati explains it by mental files. |