5 ideas
18946 | Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer] |
Full Idea: As speakers of the language, we unreflectively assume that there are nonexistents, and that reference to them is possible. | |
From: Marga Reimer (The Problem of Empty Names [2001], p.499), quoted by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 4 | |
A reaction: Sarah Swoyer quotes this as a good solution to the problem of empty names, and I like it. It introduces a two-tier picture of our understanding of the world, as 'unreflective' and 'reflective', but that seems good. We accept numbers 'unreflectively'. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
20740 | Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno] |
Full Idea: Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. | |
From: Miguel de Unamuno (The Tragic Sense of Life [1912], p.3), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Problem' | |
A reaction: Perfectly plausible, given that we presume that our feelings are startlingly different from other animals - even if we feel far more community with other mammals than we did in Unamuno's day. |