Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'Making Mind Matter More' and 'Freedom and Action'

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7 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 6. Epiphenomenalism

2599	Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor]
	Full Idea: The avoidance of epiphenomenalism requires making it plausible that intentional properties can meet sufficient conditions for causal responsibility.
	From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.154)
	A reaction: A wordy way of saying we either have epiphenomenalism, or the mind had better do something - and a good theory will show how. The biggest problem of the mind may not be Chalmer's Hard Question (qualia), but how thought-contents cause things.

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism

2597	Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor]
	Full Idea: I argue that (contrary to the doctrine called "anomalous monism") there is no good reason to doubt that there are intentional causal laws.
	From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.151)
	A reaction: I certainly can't see a good argument, in Davidson or anywhere else, to demonstrate their impossibility. Give the complexity of the brain, they would be like the 'laws' for weather or geology.

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability

2598	Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor]
	Full Idea: If one of your reasons for doubting that believing-that-P is a physical property is that believing is multiply realizable, then you have the same reason for doubting that being an airfoil (or a mountain) counts as a physical property.
	From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.153)
	A reaction: This merely points out that functionalism is not incompatible with physicalism, which must be right.

20. Action / A. Definition of Action / 1. Action Theory

20062	If a desire leads to a satisfactory result by an odd route, the causal theory looks wrong [Chisholm]
	Full Idea: If someone wants to kill his uncle to inherit a fortune, and having this desire makes him so agitated that he loses control of his car and kills a pedestrian, who turns out to be his uncle, the conditions of the causal theory seem to be satisfied.
	From: Roderick Chisholm (Freedom and Action [1966]), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 6 'Deviant'
	A reaction: This line of argument has undermined all sorts of causal theories that were fashionable in the 1960s and 70s. Explanation should lead to understanding, but a deviant causal chain doesn't explain the outcome. The causal theory can be tightened.

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / c. Agent causation

20054	There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm]
	Full Idea: There must be some event A, presumably some cerebral event, which is not caused by any other event, but by the agent.
	From: Roderick Chisholm (Freedom and Action [1966], p.20), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 4 'Agent'
	A reaction: I'm afraid this thought strikes me as quaintly ridiculous. What kind of metaphysics can allow causation outside the natural nexus, yet occuring within the physical brain? This is a relic of religious dualism. Let it go.