Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'God and Human Attributes', 'Approaches to Intentionality' and 'talk'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


8 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
Belief is the most important propositional attitude [Lyons]
     Full Idea: Belief might be accorded the status of core or chief propositional attitude.
     From: William Lyons (Approaches to Intentionality [1995], p.126)
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Consciousness no longer seems essential to intentionality [Lyons]
     Full Idea: In contrast with Brentano and Husserl, consciousness or attention are no longer seen as essential to intentionality.
     From: William Lyons (Approaches to Intentionality [1995], Intro)
     A reaction: This strikes me as being correct, although there seem to be plenty of current philosophers who do not accept it (e.g. Searle). I think philosophy of mind may be stuck in the dark ages if thinkers don't accept this proposal.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Perceptions could give us information without symbolic representation [Lyons]
     Full Idea: It is possible to give an account of concept-formation without a language of thought or representation, based on perception, which in the brain seems to involve information without representation.
     From: William Lyons (Approaches to Intentionality [1995], p.66)
     A reaction: This claim strikes me as being a little too confident. One might say that a concept IS a representation. However, the perception of several horses might 'blur' together to form a generalised horse.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 2. Propositional Attitudes
Propositional attitudes require representation [Lyons]
     Full Idea: How else, other than via some form of representational system, could a human organism contain information as a content over which it could operate or 'attitudinise'?
     From: William Lyons (Approaches to Intentionality [1995], Intro)
     A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'representational'. In its vaguest sense, this is just a tautology - content must be held in the mind in some form or other, but that tells us nothing.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology works badly for alien cultures [Lyons]
     Full Idea: It is not easy to employ our folk psychology in the understanding of persons in a very different culture.
     From: William Lyons (Approaches to Intentionality [1995], p.241)
     A reaction: This strikes me as a highly significant problem for the friends of folk psychology. It also breaks down in extreme situations, or with mental illness. It seems closer to culture than to brain structure.
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
All thinking has content [Lyons]
     Full Idea: I cannot say I am simply thinking but not thinking about anything.
     From: William Lyons (Approaches to Intentionality [1995], Intro)
     A reaction: Hard to disagree. However, I can plausibly reply to 'What are you thinking?' with 'Nothing', if my consciousness is freewheeling. Utterly disconnected content isn't really what we call 'thinking'.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
God can't have silly perfections, but how do we decide which ones are 'silly'? [Joslin]
     Full Idea: It is clear that God cannot have all conceivable perfections, because otherwise he would have absurd perfections (like being the perfect prawn sandwich), so a line must be drawn, and how are we to decide which perfections are appropriate and essential?
     From: Jack Joslin (talk [2006]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: This is an excellent question for curbing the absurdities of those who want to load God with every good thing that can possibly be conceived. Is the God who is also a perfect prawn sandwich more perfect than the one who isn't?
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?