10 ideas
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 3978 | Associations are held to connect Ideas together in the way the world is connected together [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The laws of associations were held to explicate the semantic coherence of intentional processes, which adjust the causal relations among Ideas to reflect corresponding relations among the things that they're ideas of. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.296) | |
| A reaction: With the support of evolution, and the backing of a correspondence theory of truth, plus more sophistication in the associations, this might work. |
| 3976 | Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If there is to be an intentional science, there must be semantically evaluable things which have causal powers, and there must be laws relating beliefs and desires to one another, and to actions. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.293) | |
| A reaction: The semantics and causation sound fair enough, but the prospect of finding laws looks bleak (though, contrary to Davidson, I don't see why they can't exist). |
| 3980 | Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It may be that intentional states are relations to mental symbols, and mental processes are implemented by causal relations among these symbols. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.296) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to see how something could have causal powers just by being a symbol. The theory needs something else to drive the causation. |
| 3981 | Most psychological properties seem to be multiply realisable [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: These days most philosophers of mind suppose that most psychological properties are multiply realisable. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.298) | |
| A reaction: This is just speculation. The physical part may seem very different, but turn out to be identical in the ways that matter (like a knife made of two different metals). |
| 3975 | Folk psychology explains behaviour by reference to intentional states like belief and desire [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology is primarily intentional explanation; it's the idea that people's behaviour can be explained by reference to the contents of their beliefs and desires. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.292) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. To reject folk psychology (as reductivists tend to) is to reject the existence of significant intentional states which have causal properties |
| 3982 | How could the extrinsic properties of thoughts supervene on their intrinsic properties? [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: It is hard to see how the extrinsic properties of thoughts could supervene on their intrinsic properties. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.299) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem a big problem. Sometimes represented experiences establish the match; sometimes the match is not very good, or even wrong. |
| 9567 | Maths deals with quantities of physical significance, ignoring irrelevant features [Geroch] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics can serve to provide a framework within which one deals only with quantities of physical significance, ignoring other, irrelevant things. | |
| From: Robert Geroch (Mathematical Physics [1985], p.1), quoted by Charles Chihara - A Structural Account of Mathematics 9.8 | |
| A reaction: This is a modern physicist espousing abstractionism, as derided and dismissed by Frege and Geach. It's common sense, really. |
| 3977 | Laws are true generalisations which support counterfactuals and are confirmed by instances [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Laws are true generalisations that support counterfactuals and are confirmed by their instances. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Jerry A. Fodor on himself [1994], p.293) | |
| A reaction: This seems correct, but it doesn't disentangle laws as mental states from laws as features of nature |