Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts', 'Sweet Dreams' and 'A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori'

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14 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 1. Overview of Logic
9358 There are several logics, none of which will ever derive falsehoods from truth [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: The fact is that there are several logics, markedly different, each self-consistent in its own terms and such that whoever, using it, avoids false premises, will never reach a false conclusion.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.366)
     A reaction: As the man who invented modal logic in five different versions, he speaks with some authority. Logicians now debate which version is the best, so how could that be decided? You could avoid false conclusions by never reasoning at all.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
9390 Logic guides thinking, but it isn't a substitute for it [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: Logic is part of a normative theory of thinking, not a substitute for thinking.
     From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.13)
     A reaction: There is some sort of logicians' dream, going back to Leibniz, of a reasoning engine, which accepts propositions and outputs inferences. I agree with this idea. People who excel at logic are often, it seems to me, modest at philosophy.
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
9357 Excluded middle is just our preference for a simplified dichotomy in experience [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: The law of excluded middle formulates our decision that whatever is not designated by a certain term shall be designated by its negative. It declares our purpose to make a complete dichotomy of experience, ..which is only our penchant for simplicity.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.365)
     A reaction: I find this view quite appealing. 'Look, it's either F or it isn't!' is a dogmatic attitude which irritates a lot of people, and appears to be dispensible. Intuitionists in mathematics dispense with the principle, and vagueness threatens it.
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
9364 Names represent a uniformity in experience, or they name nothing [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: A name must represent some uniformity in experience or it names nothing.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.368)
     A reaction: I like this because, in the quintessentially linguistic debate about the exact logical role of names, it reminds us that names arise because of the way reality is; they are not sui generis private games for logicians.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
9389 Vague membership of sets is possible if the set is defined by its concept, not its members [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: Vagueness in respect of membership is consistency with determinacy of the set's identity, so long as a set's identity is taken to consist, not in its having such-and-such members, but in its being the extension of a concept.
     From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.5)
     A reaction: I find this view of sets much more appealing than the one that identifies a set with its members. The empty set is less of a problem, as well as non-existents. Logicians prefer the extensional view because it is tidy.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
9362 Necessary truths are those we will maintain no matter what [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: Those laws and those laws only have necessary truth which we are prepared to maintain, no matter what.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.367)
     A reaction: This bold and simple claim has famously been torpedoed by a well-known counterexample - that virtually every human being will cling on to the proposition "dogs have at some time existed" no matter what, but it clearly isn't a necessary truth.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 7. A Priori from Convention
9365 We can maintain a priori principles come what may, but we can also change them [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: The a priori contains principles which can be maintained in the face of all experience, representing the initiative of the mind. But they are subject to alteration on pragmatic grounds, if expanding experience shows their intellectual infelicity.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.373)
     A reaction: [compressed] This simply IS Quine's famous 'web of belief' picture, showing how firmly Quine is in the pragmatist tradition. Lewis treats a priori principles as a pragmatic toolkit, which can be refined to be more effective. Not implausible...
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
7658 Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett]
     Full Idea: If you define qualia as intrinsic properties of experiences considered in isolation from all their causes and effects, logically independent of all dispositional properties, then they are logically guaranteed to elude all broad functional analysis.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.8)
     A reaction: This is a good point - it seems daft to reify qualia and imagine them dangling in mid-air with all their vibrant qualities - but that is a long way from saying there is nothing more to qualia than functional roles. Functions must be exlained too.
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
7655 The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett]
     Full Idea: All the work done by the imagined homunculus in the Cartesian Theater must be distributed among various lesser agencies in the brain, none of which is conscious.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Dennett's account crucially depends on consciousness being much more fragmentary than most philosophers claim it to be. It is actually full of joints, which can come apart. He may be right.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
7657 Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett]
     Full Idea: As long as your homunculi are more stupid and ignorant than the intelligent agent they compose, the nesting of homunculi within homunculi can be finite, bottoming out, eventually, with agents so unimpressive they can be replaced by machines.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6)
     A reaction: [Dennett first proposed this in 'Brainstorms' 1978]. This view was developed well by Lycan. I rate it as one of the most illuminating ideas in the modern philosophy of mind. All complex systems (like aeroplanes) have this structure.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
7656 I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett]
     Full Idea: I don't maintain, of course, that human consciousness does not exist; I maintain that it is not what people often think it is.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: I consider Dennett to be as near as you can get to an eliminativist, but he is not stupid. As far as I can see, the modern philosopher's bogey-man, the true total eliminativist, simply doesn't exist. Eliminativists usually deny propositional attitudes.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
7654 What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett]
     Full Idea: Neuro-science matters because - and only because - we have discovered that the many different neuromodulators and other chemical messengers that diffuse throughout the brain have functional roles that make important differences.
     From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.1)
     A reaction: I agree with Dennett that this is the true ground for pessimism about spectacular breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, rather than abstract concerns about irreducible features of the mind like 'qualia' and 'rationality'.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
9361 We have to separate the mathematical from physical phenomena by abstraction [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: Physical processes present us with phenomena in which the purely mathematical has to be separated out by abstraction.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.367)
     A reaction: This is the father of modal logic endorsing traditional abstractionism, it seems. He is also, though, endorsing the view that a priori knowledge is created by us, with pragmatic ends in view.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism
9363 Science seeks classification which will discover laws, essences, and predictions [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: The scientific search is for such classification as will make it possible to correlate appearance and behaviour, to discover law, to penetrate to the "essential nature" of things in order that behaviour may become predictable.
     From: C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.368)
     A reaction: Modern scientific essentialists no longer invoke scare quotes, and I think we should talk of the search for the 'mechanisms' which explain behaviour, but Lewis seems to have been sixty years ahead of his time.