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All the ideas for 'works', 'Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason' and 'Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory'

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31 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
22121 The concept of being has only one meaning, whether talking of universals or of God [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus was the first scholastic to hold that the concept of being and other transcendentals were univocal, not only in application to substance and accidents, but even to God and creatures.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205
     A reaction: So either it exists or it doesn't. No nonsense about 'subsisting'. Russell flirted with subsistence, but Quine agrees with Duns Scotus (and so do I).
22122 Being (not sensation or God) is the primary object of the intellect [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus said the primary object of the created intellect was being, rejecting Aquinas's Aristotelian view that it was limited to the quiddity of the sense particular, and Henry of Ghent's Augustinian view that it was God.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205
     A reaction: I suppose the 'primary object of the intellect' is the rationalist/empiricism disagreement. So (roughly) Aquinas was an empiricist, Duns Scotus was a rationalist, and Augustine was a transcendentalist? Augustine sounds like Spinoza.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals
22125 Duns Scotus was a realist about universals [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus was a realist on the issue of universals and one of the main adversaries of Ockham's programme of nominalism.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: The view of Scotus seems to be the minority view. It is hard to find thinkers who really believe that universals have an independent existence. My interest in Duns Scotus waned when I read this. How does he imagine universals?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
22127 Scotus said a substantial principle of individuation [haecceitas] was needed for an essence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Rejecting the standard views that essences are individuated by either actual existence, quantity or matter, Scotus said that the principle of individuation is a further substantial difference added to the species - the so-called haecceitas or 'thisness'.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: [Scotus seldom referred to 'haecceitas'] I suppose essences have prior existence, but are too generic, so something must fix an essence as pertaining to this particular object. Is the haecceitas part of the essence, or of the particular?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence
22126 Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus endorsed Avicenna's theory of the common nature, according to which the essences have an independence and priority to their existence as either universal in the mind or singular outside it.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: I occasionally meet this weird idea in modern discussions of essence (in Lowe?), and now see its origin. It makes little sense without a divine mind to support the independent essences. Scotus had to add a principle of individuation for essences.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
1350 Continuity is needed for existence, otherwise we would say a thing existed after it ceased to exist [Reid]
     Full Idea: Identity supposes an uninterrupted continuance of existence….Otherwise we must suppose a being to exist after it has ceased to exist, and to have existed before it was produced, which are manifest contradictions.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: I take the point to be that if something is supposed to survive a gap in its existence, that must imply that it somehow exists during the gap. If a light flashes on and off, is it really a new entity each time?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 13. No Identity over Time
21322 We treat slowly changing things as identical for the sake of economy in language [Reid]
     Full Idea: All bodies, as they consist of innumerable parts, are subject to continual changes of their substance. When such changes are gradual, because language could not afford a different name for each state, it retains the same name and is considered the same.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: This is hard to deny. We could hardly rename a child each morning. Simlarly, we can't have a unique name for each leaf on a tree. Economy of language explains a huge amount in philosophy.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
21320 Identity is familiar to common sense, but very hard to define [Reid]
     Full Idea: Every man of common sense has a clear and distinct notion of identity. If you ask for a definition of identity, I confess I can give none. It is too simple a notion.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: 'Identical' seems to be a two-place predicate, but the only strict way two things can be identical is if there is actually just one thing. In which case just drop the word 'identity' (instead of defining it), and say there is just one thing here.
1367 Identity can only be affirmed of things which have a continued existence [Reid]
     Full Idea: Identity can only be affirmed of things which have a continued existence.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: This doesn't mean that Reid thinks there is nothing more to the identity than their similitude. But he, like Hume, denies that there is personal identity at any given instant. Reid is better at criticism than at formulating his own theory.
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty
22129 Certainty comes from the self-evident, from induction, and from self-awareness [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus grounded certitude in the knowledge of self-evident propositions, induction, and awareness of our own state.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: Induction looks like the weak link here.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism
22130 Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Scotus allocated to the intellect a direct, existential awareness of the intelligible object, called 'intuitive cognition', in contrast to abstractive knowledge, which seized the object independently of its presence to the intellect in actual existence.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: Presumably if you see a thing, shut your eyes and then know it, that is 'abstractive'. Scotus says open your eyes for proper knowledge.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
22128 Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Scotus rejected Henry of Ghent's defence of Augustine's of knowledge by 'illumination', as leading to nothing but scepticism. ...After this, illumination never made a serious recovery.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
23644 Without memory we could have no concept of duration [Reid]
     Full Idea: It is impossible to show how we could acquire a notion of duration if we had no memory.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], 1)
     A reaction: We would probably not have a notion of duration if we possessed a memory, but nothing ever changed. Maybe in Shoemaker's frozen worlds they retain memories, but nothing happens?
23643 We all trust our distinct memories (but not our distinct imaginings) [Reid]
     Full Idea: Every man feels he must believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can give no other reason for his belief, but that he remembers the thing distinctly; whereas, when he merely distinctly imagines a thing, he has no belief in it upon that account.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], 1)
     A reaction: The word 'distinct' is doing some heavy work here. I fear that believing the memory is the only criterion we have for calling it distinct. As a boy I was persuaded to change my testimony about a car accident, and I realised I was not distinct about it.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind
1356 A person is a unity, and doesn't come in degrees [Reid]
     Full Idea: The identity of a person is a perfect identity: wherever it is real, it admits of no degrees; and it is impossible that a person should be in part the same, and in part different; because a person is a 'monad', and is not divisible into parts.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: I don't accept this, because I don't accept the metaphysics needed to underpin it. To watch a person with Alzheimer's disease fade out of existence before they die seems sufficient counter-evidence. I believe in personal identity, but it isn't 'perfect'.
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 2. Persons as Responsible
1359 Personal identity is the basis of all rights, obligations and responsibility [Reid]
     Full Idea: Identity, when applied to persons, has no ambiguity, and admits of no degrees. It is the foundation of all rights and obligations, and of all accountableness.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: This seems to me to be one of the key mistakes in all of philosophy - thinking that items must always be all-or-nothing. If a person deteriorates through Alzheimer's, there seem to be obvious degrees of personhood. Responsibility comes in degrees, too.
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 3. Persons as Reasoners
21319 I can hardly care about rational consequence if it wasn't me conceiving the antecedent [Reid]
     Full Idea: The conviction of personal identity is indispensably necessary to all exercise of reason. Reasoning is made up of successive parts. Without the conviction that the antecedent have been seen by me, I could have no reason to proceed to the consequent.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: Society needs philosophers precisely to point such things out. It isn't conclusive, but populist waffle about the self not existing undermines the very concept of a 'train of thought', which everybody is signed up to. Trains of thought can take years.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
21323 The identity of a thief is only known by similarity, but memory gives certainty in our own case [Reid]
     Full Idea: A man challenges a thief in possession of his horse only on similarity. The testimony of witnesses to the identity of a person is commonly grounded on no other evidence. ...Evidence of our own identity is grounded in memory, and gives undoubted certainty.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: With other people the best we can hope for is type-identity, hoping that each individual being is a unique type, but with otherselves we are always confident of establishing token identity. Could I have been someone different yesterday, without realising?
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / c. Inadequacy of mental continuity
21321 Memory reveals my past identity - but so does testimony of other witnesses [Reid]
     Full Idea: Although memory gives the most irresistible evidence of my being the identical person that did such a thing, I may have other good evidence of things which befell me. I know who bare me and suckled me, but I do not remember those events.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: A splendidly accurate and simple observation. Reid's criticisms of Locke are greatly superior to those of Butler. We now have vast collections of photographs showing our past identities.
21324 If consciousness is transferable 20 persons can be 1; forgetting implies 1 can be 20 [Reid]
     Full Idea: If the same consciousness can be transferred from one intelligent being to another, then two or twenty beings may be the same person. If he may lose the consciousness of actions done by him, one intelligent being may be two or twenty different persons.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: Reid says Locke was aware of these two implications of his theory of personal identity (based on consciousness). The first example is me replicated like software. The second is if I forget that I turned the light off, then who did turn the light off?
21325 Boy same as young man, young man same as old man, old man not boy, if forgotten! [Reid]
     Full Idea: Suppose a brave officer, flogged as a boy for robbing an orchard, to have captured a standard in his first campaign, and become a general in advanced life. [If the general forgets the flogging] he is and at the same time is not the same as the boy.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: The point is that strict identity has to be transitive, and if the general forgets his boyhood that breaks the transitivity. If identity is less strict there is no problem. The general may only have memories related to some part of his boyhood.
21327 If a stolen horse is identified by similitude, its identity is not therefore merely similitude [Reid]
     Full Idea: When a stolen horse is claimed, the only evidence that this is the same horse is similitude. But would it not be ridiculous from this to infer that the identity of a horse consists in similitude only?
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: Actually that is exactly Hume's view of the matter (Idea 21292). For a strict empiricist there is nothing else be close resemblance over time. I prefer Reid's account to Hume's. - but then I am not a 'strict' empiricist.
1366 If consciousness is personal identity, it is continually changing [Reid]
     Full Idea: Is it not strange that the identity of a person should consist in a thing (consciousness) which is continually changing?
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 6)
     A reaction: This is the panicky slippery slope view of Locke, that sees his doctrine as the first step to the destruction of religion. The fact is, though, that parts of my consciousness changes continually, but other parts stay the same for years on end.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 7. Self and Thinking
1352 Thoughts change continually, but the self doesn't [Reid]
     Full Idea: My thoughts, and actions, and feelings, change every moment: they have no continued, but a successive, existence: but that self, or I, to which they belong, is permanent.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 3: Memory [1785], III.Ch 4)
     A reaction: The word 'permanent' may be excessive, but one could hardly say there is nothing more to personal identity than the contents of consciousnes, given how much and how quickly those continually fluctuate.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
22131 The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Scotus said the will is a power for opposites, in the sense that even when actually willing one thing, it retains a real, active power to will the opposite. He detaches the idea of freedom from time and variability.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: In the sense that we can abandon an action when in the middle of it, this seems to be correct. Not just 'I could have done otherwise', but 'I don't have to be doing this'. This shows that the will has wide power, but not that it is 'free'.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
20034 Intentions must be mutually consistent, affirm appropriate means, and fit the agent's beliefs [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman's three main norms of intention are 'internal consistency' (between a person's intentions), 'means-end coherence' (the means must fit the end), and 'consistency with the agent's beliefs' (especially intending to do and believing you won't do).
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: These are controversial, but have set the agenda for modern non-reductive discussions of intention.
20033 Intentions are normative, requiring commitment and further plans [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Intentions involve normative commitments. We settle on intended courses, if there is no reason to reconsider them, and intentions put pressure on us to form further intentions in order to more efficiently coordinate our actions.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: [a compression of their summary] This distinguishes them from beliefs and desires, which contain no such normative requirements, even though they may point that way.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / b. Types of intention
20026 Intention is either the aim of an action, or a long-term constraint on what we can do [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: We need to distinguish intention as an aim or goal of actions, and intentions as a distinctive state of commitment to future action, a state that results from and subsequently constrains our practical endeavours as planning agents.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
     A reaction: I'm not sure how distinct these are, given the obvious possibility of intermediate stages, and the embracing of any available short-cut. If I could mow my lawn with one blink, I'd do it.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20032 Bratman rejected reducing intentions to belief-desire, because they motivate, and have their own standards [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman motivated the idea that intentions are psychologically real and not reducible to desire-belief complexes by observing that they are motivationally distinctive, and subject to their own unique standards of rational appraisal.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: If I thought my belief was a bit warped, and my desire morally corrupt, my higher self might refuse to form an intention. If so, then Bratman is onto something. But maybe my higher self has its own beliefs and desires.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
22123 The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus establishes God as first efficient cause, as ultimate final cause, and as most eminent being - his so-called 'triple primacy' - and says there is a unique nature within these primacies.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: This is the first stage of Duns Scotus's unusually complex argument for God's existence. Asserting the actual infinity of this unique being concludes his argument.
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof
22124 We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
     Full Idea: Duns Scotus rejected the traditional argument that the infinity of God can be inferred from creation ex nihilo.
     From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206
     A reaction: He accepted the infinity of God, however, but not for this reason. I don't know why he rejected it. I suppose the rejected claim is that something has to be infinite, and if it isn't the Cosmos then that leaves God?