Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Sketch for Theory of Emotions', 'Action' and 'Preface to Universal Characteristic'

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22 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
2118 All other human gifts can harm us, but not correct reasoning [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Although people can be made worse off by all other gifts, correct reasoning alone can only be for the good.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Preface to Universal Characteristic [1679])
     A reaction: How about a kind heart? Not everyone would agree with the remark, but philosophers should.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / b. Essence of consciousness
24016 Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre]
     Full Idea: It is of the essence of consciousness to transcend itself
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III)
     A reaction: As usual, I am a bit baffled by these sorts of pronouncement. Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Maybe it is a development of Schopenhauer's thought.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
24013 An emotion and its object form a unity, so emotion is a mode of apprehension [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Emotion returns to its object every moment, and feeds upon it. …The emotional subject and the object of the emotion are united in an indissoluble synthesis. Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world. …[39] It is a transformation of the world.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III)
     A reaction: The last sentence is the essence (or existence?) of Sartre's core theory of the emotions. They are, it seems, a mode of perception, like a colour filter added to a camera. I don't think I agree. I see them as a response to perceptions, not part of them.
24017 Emotion is one of our modes of understanding our Being-in-the-World [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Emotion is not an accident, it is a mode of our conscious existence, one of the ways in which consciousness understands (in Heidegger's sense of verstehen) its Being-in-the-World. …It has a meaning.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III)
     A reaction: Calling emotions a 'mode' suggests that this way of understanding is intermittent, which seems wrong. Even performing arithmetical calculations is coloured by emotions, so they go deeper than a 'mode'.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions
24014 Emotions are a sort of bodily incantation which brings a magic to the world [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Joy is the magical behaviour which tries, by incantation, to realise the possession of the desired object as an instantaneous totality. [47] Emotions are all reducible to the constitution of a magic world by using our bodies as instruments of incantation.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III)
     A reaction: I can't pretend to understand this, but I am reminded of the fact that the so-called primary qualities of perception are innately boring, and it is only the secondary qualities (like colour and smell) which make the world interesting.
24015 Emotions makes us believe in and live in a new world [Sartre]
     Full Idea: Emotion is a phenomenon of belief. Consciousness does not limit itself to the projection of affective meanings upon the world around it; it lives the new world it has thereby constituted.
     From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III)
     A reaction: There seems to be an implied anti-realism in this, since the emotions prevent us from relating more objectively to the world. The 'magic' seems to be compulsory.
20. Action / A. Definition of Action / 1. Action Theory
20014 Actions include: the involuntary, the purposeful, the intentional, and the self-consciously autonomous [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: There are different levels of action, including at least: unconscious and/or involuntary behaviour, purposeful or goal-directed activity, intentional action, and the autonomous acts or actions of self-consciously active human agents.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1)
     A reaction: The fourth class is obviously designed to distinguish us from the other animals. It immediately strikes me as very optimistic to distinguish four (at least) clear categories, but you have to start somewhere.
20. Action / A. Definition of Action / 4. Action as Movement
20019 Maybe bodily movements are not actions, but only part of an agent's action of moving [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Some say that the movement's of agent's body are never actions. It is only the agent's direct moving of, say, his leg that constitutes a physical action; the leg movement is merely caused by and/or incorporated as part of the act of moving.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.2)
     A reaction: [they cite Jennifer Hornsby 1980] It seems normal to deny a twitch the accolade of an 'action', so I suppose that is right. Does the continual movement of my tongue count as action? Only if I bring it under control? Does it matter? Only in forensics.
20021 Is the action the arm movement, the whole causal process, or just the trying to do it? [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers have favored the overt arm movement the agent performs, some favor the extended causal process he initiates, and some prefer the relevant event of trying that precedes and 'generates' the rest.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.2)
     A reaction: [Davidson argues for the second, Hornsby for the third] There seems no way to settle this, and a compromise looks best. Mere movement won't do, and mere trying won't do, and whole processes get out of control.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
20022 To be intentional, an action must succeed in the manner in which it was planned [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: If someone fires a bullet to kill someone, misses, and dislodges hornets that sting him to death, this implies that an intentional action must include succeeding in a manner according to the original plan.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2)
     A reaction: [their example, compressed] This resembles Gettier's problem cases for knowledge. If the shooter deliberately and maliciously brought down the hornet's nest, that would be intentional murder. Sounds right.
20023 If someone believes they can control the lottery, and then wins, the relevant skill is missing [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: If someone enters the lottery with the bizarre belief that they can control who wins, and then wins it, that suggest that intentional actions must not depend on sheer luck, but needs competent exercise of the relevant skill.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2)
     A reaction: A nice companion to Idea 20022, which show that a mere intention is not sufficient to motivate and explain an action.
20025 We might intend two ways to acting, knowing only one of them can succeed [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: If an agent tries to do something by two different means, only one of which can succeed, then the behaviour is rational, even though one of them is an attempt to do an action which cannot succeed.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2)
     A reaction: [a concise account of a laborious account of an example from Bratman 1984, 1987] Bratman uses this to challenge the 'Simple View', that intention leads straightforwardly to action.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20031 On one model, an intention is belief-desire states, and intentional actions relate to beliefs and desires [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: On the simple desire-belief model, an intention is a combination of desire-belief states, and an action is intentional in virtue of standing in the appropriate relation to these simpler terms.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 4)
     A reaction: This is the traditional view found in Hume, and is probably endemic to folk psychology. They cite Bratman 1987 as the main opponent of the view.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / d. Group intentions
20028 Groups may act for reasons held by none of the members, so maybe groups are agents [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Rational group action may involve a 'collectivising of reasons', with participants acting in ways that are not rationally recommended from the individual viewpoint. This suggests that groups can be rational, intentional agents.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2)
     A reaction: [Pettit 2003] is the source for this. Gilbert says individuals can have joint commitment; Pettit says the group can be an independent agent. The matter of shared intentions is interesting, but there is no need for the ontology to go berserk.
20027 If there are shared obligations and intentions, we may need a primitive notion of 'joint commitment' [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: An account of mutual obligation to do something may require that we give up reductive individualist accounts of shared activity and posit a primitive notion of 'joint commitment'.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2)
     A reaction: [attributed to Margaret Gilbert 2000] If 'we' are trying to do something, that seems to give an externalist picture of intentions, rather like all the other externalisms floating around these days. I don't buy any of it, me.
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 2. Acting on Beliefs / b. Action cognitivism
20016 Strong Cognitivism identifies an intention to act with a belief [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: A Strong Cognitivist is someone who identifies an intention with a certain pertinent belief about what she is doing or about to do.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.1)
     A reaction: (Sarah Paul 2009 makes this distinction) The belief, if so, seems to be as much counterfactual as factual. Hope seems to come into it, which isn't exactly a belief.
20017 Weak Cognitivism says intentions are only partly constituted by a belief [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: A Weak Cognitivist holds that intentions are partly constituted by, but are not identical with, relevant beliefs about the action. Grice (1971) said an intention is willing an action, combined with a belief that this will lead to the action.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.1)
     A reaction: [compressed] I didn't find Strong Cognitivism appealing, but it seems hard to argue with some form of the weak version.
20018 Strong Cognitivism implies a mode of 'practical' knowledge, not based on observation [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Strong Cognitivists say intentions/beliefs are not based on observation or evidence, and are causally reliable in leading to appropriate actions, so this is a mode of 'practical' knowledge that has not been derived from observation.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.1)
     A reaction: [compressed - Stanford unnecessarily verbose!] I see no mention in this discussion of 'hoping' that your action will turn out OK. We are usually right to hope, but it would be foolish to say that when we reach for the salt we know we won't knock it over.
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
20012 Maybe the explanation of an action is in the reasons that make it intelligible to the agent [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Some have maintained that we explain why an agent acted as he did when we explicate how the agent's normative reasons rendered the action intelligible in his eyes.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], Intro)
     A reaction: Modern psychology is moving against this, by showing how hidden biases can predominate over conscious reasons (as in Kahnemann's work). I would say this mode of explanation works better for highly educated people (but you can chuckle at that).
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / c. Reasons as causes
20029 Causalists allow purposive explanations, but then reduce the purpose to the action's cause [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Most causalists allow that reason explanations are teleological, but say that such purposive explanations are analysable causally, where the primary reasons for the act are the guiding causes of the act.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 3)
     A reaction: The authors observe that it is hard to adjudicate on this matter, and that the concept of the 'cause' of an action is unclear.
20013 It is generally assumed that reason explanations are causal [Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: The view that reason explanations are somehow causal explanations remains the dominant position.
     From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], Intro)
     A reaction: I suspect that this is only because no philosopher has a better idea, and the whole issue is being slowly outflanked by psychology.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
20491 States have a monopoly of legitimate violence [Sartre, by Wolff,J]
     Full Idea: Max Weber observed that states possess a monopoly of legitimate violence.
     From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 2 'State'
     A reaction: This sounds rather hair-raising, and often is, but it sounds quite good if we describe it as a denial of legitimate violence to individual citizens. Hobbes would like it, since individual violence breaches some sort of natural contract. Guns in USA.