Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'God and Human Attributes', 'Thinking and Experience' and 'Dialogue on human freedom and origin of evil'

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15 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
Circles must be bounded, so cannot be infinite [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: An infinite circle is impossible, since any circle is bounded by its circumference.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Dialogue on human freedom and origin of evil [1695], p.114)
     A reaction: This is interesting if one is asking what the essence of a circle must be. If is tempting to say merely that the radii must be equal, but can they have the length of some vast transfinite number? The circumference must be 2π bigger.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: There is no a priori necessity for supposing that all disposition properties must have a 'categorical base'. In particular, there may be some mental dispositions which are ultimate.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.XI)
     A reaction: I take the notion that mental dispositions could be ultimate as rather old-fashioned, but I agree with the notion that dispositions might be more fundamental that categorical (actual) properties. Personally I like 'powers'.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
Before we can abstract from an instance of violet, we must first recognise it [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: Abstraction is preceded by an earlier stage, in which we learn to recognize instances; before I can conceive of the colour violet in abstracto, I must learn to recognize instances of this colour when I see them.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.II)
     A reaction: The problem here might be one of circularity. If you are actually going to identify something as violet, you seem to need the abstract concept of 'violet' in advance. See Idea 9034 for Price's attempt to deal with the problem.
If judgement of a characteristic is possible, that part of abstraction must be complete [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: If we are to 'judge' - rightly or not - that this object has a specific characteristic, it would seem that so far as the characteristic is concerned the process of abstraction must already be completed.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.III)
     A reaction: Personally I think Price is right, despite the vicious attack from Geach that looms. We all know the experiences of familiarity, recognition, and identification that go on when see a person or picture. 'What animal is that, in the distance?'
There may be degrees of abstraction which allow recognition by signs, without full concepts [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: If abstraction is a matter of degree, and the first faint beginnings of it are already present as soon as anything has begun to feel familiar to us, then recognition by means of signs can occur long before the process of abstraction has been completed.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.III)
     A reaction: I like this, even though it is unscientific introspective psychology, for which no proper evidence can be adduced - because it is right. Neuroscience confirms that hardly any mental life has an all-or-nothing form.
There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: We must still insist that some degree of abstraction, and even a very considerable degree of it, is present in sign-cognition, pre-verbal as it is. ...To us, who are familiar with northern winters, the ice actually looks cold.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV)
     A reaction: Price may be in the weak position of doing armchair psychology, but something like his proposal strikes me as correct. I'm much happier with accounts of thought that talk of 'degrees' of an activity, than with all-or-nothing cut-and-dried pictures.
Intelligent behaviour, even in animals, has something abstract about it [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: Though it may sound odd to say so, intelligent behaviour has something abstract about it no less than intelligent cognition; and indeed at the animal level it is unrealistic to separate the two.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV)
     A reaction: This elusive thought strikes me as being a key one for understanding human existence. To think is to abstract. Brains are abstraction machines. Resemblance and recognition require abstaction.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / b. Fate
Sloth's Syllogism: either it can't happen, or it is inevitable without my effort [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The ancient Sloth's Syllogism says that if something is foreseen and infallible, it will happen without my effort, and if it is not foreseen, it will not happen, even though I am able to do it.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Dialogue on human freedom and origin of evil [1695], p.113)
     A reaction: Presumable the foreseeing is to be done by the oracle, and not by the slothful person.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Recognition must precede the acquisition of basic concepts, so it is the fundamental intellectual process [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: Recognition is the first stage towards the acquisition of a primary or basic concept. It is, therefore, the most fundamental of all intellectual processes.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.II)
     A reaction: An interesting question is whether it is an 'intellectual' process. Animals evidently recognise things, though it is a moot point whether slugs 'recognise' tasty leaves.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 1. Abstract Thought
Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: An abstract idea may have a dispositional as well as an occurrent interpretation. ..A man who possesses the concept Dog, when he is actually perceiving a dog can recognize that it is one, and can think about dogs when he is not perceiving any dog.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IX)
     A reaction: Ryle had just popularised the 'dispositional' account of mental events. Price is obviously right. The man may also be able to use the word 'dog' in sentences, but presumably dogs recognise dogs, and probably dream about dogs too.
If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: There used to be a 'problem of Abstract Ideas' because it was assumed that an idea ought, somehow, to be a mental image; if some of our ideas appeared not to be images, this was a paradox and some solution must be found.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.VIII)
     A reaction: Berkeley in particular seems to be struck by the fact that we are incapable of thinking of a general triangle, simply because there is no image related to it. Most conversations go too fast for images to form even of very visual things.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
The basic concepts of conceptual cognition are acquired by direct abstraction from instances [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: Basic concepts are acquired by direct abstraction from instances; unless there were some concepts acquired in this way by direct abstraction, there would be no conceptual cognition at all.
     From: H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.II)
     A reaction: This seems to me to be correct. A key point is that not only will I acquire the concept of 'dog' in this direct way, from instances, but also the concept of 'my dog Spot' - that is I can acquire the abstract concept of an instance from an instance.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / c. Moral Argument
God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
     Full Idea: Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
     From: report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
     A reaction: Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
Evil is a negation of good, which arises from non-being [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The cause of good is positive, but evil is a defect, that is, a privation or negation, and consequently, it arises from nothingness or nonbeing.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Dialogue on human freedom and origin of evil [1695], p.114)
     A reaction: He goes on to illustrate his idea from mathematics. He is modifying Augustine's view that evil is an absence of good, by adding nonbeing as the driving force behind it. Doesn't sound very persuasive to me.
God only made sin possible because a much greater good can be derived from it [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: We must believe that God would not have allowed sin nor would he have created things he knows will sin, if he could not derive from them a good incomparably greater than the resulting evil.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Dialogue on human freedom and origin of evil [1695], p.115)
     A reaction: Why 'must' we believe this? Do we have to imagine all the genocides shrinking to insignificance once we grasp the wonderful goods that can be derived from them? The end justifies the means. Genocide is actually a good thing. Hm.