Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'talk', 'Should a materialist believe in qualia?' and 'works'

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3 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
Part of the folk concept of qualia is what makes recognition and comparison possible [Lewis]
     Full Idea: The concept of qualia (a part of the folk concept) is the concept of properties of experiences apt for causing abilities to recognize and to imagine experiences of the same type.
     From: David Lewis (Should a materialist believe in qualia? [1995], p.327)
     A reaction: I presume the other part of the folk concept would be what it is about qualia that makes this possible, namely that they 'look/sound/feel.. the same'. Lewis emphasises the functional aspect, which could not possibly be the whole story.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Hesiod reckons envy among the effects of the good and benevolent Eris, and there was nothing offensive in according envy to the gods. ...Likewise the Greeks were different from us in their evaluation of hope: one felt it to be blind and malicious.
     From: report of Hesiod (works [c.700 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Dawn (Daybreak) 038
     A reaction: Presumably this would be understandable envy, and unreasonable hope. Ridiculous envy can't possibly be good, and modest and sensible hope can't possibly be bad. I suspect he wants to exaggerate the relativism.