12 ideas
| 6316 | We translate in a way that makes the largest possible number of statements true [Wilson,NL] |
| Full Idea: We select as designatum that individual which will make the largest possible number of statements true. | |
| From: N.L. Wilson (Substances without Substrata [1959]), quoted by Willard Quine - Word and Object II.§13 n | |
| A reaction: From the Quine's reference, it sounds as if Wilson was the originator of the well-known principle of charity, later taken up by Davidson. If so, he should be famous, because it strikes me as a piece of fundamental and important wisdom. |
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
| 8388 | Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The main approaches to causation I shall refer to as direct realism, Humean reductionism, non-Humean reductionism, and indirect or theoretical realism. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: The first simply observes causation (Anscombe), the second reduces it to regularity (Hume), the third reduces it to other natural features (Fair, Salmon, Dowe), the fourth takes an instrumental approach (Armstrong, Tooley). I favour the third approach. |
| 8389 | Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The three main distinctions concerning causation are between reductionism and realism; between Humean and non-Humean states of affairs; and between states that are immediately observable and those that are not. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: I favour reductionism over realism, because I like the question 'If x is real, what is it made of?' I favour non-Humean states of affairs, because I think constant conjunction is very superficial. I presume the existence of non-observable components. |
| 8393 | We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: A reductionist can hold that the direction of causation is to be defined in terms of the direction of time; but this response is only available if one is prepared to adopt a realist view of the direction of time. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.2.1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice illustration of the problems that arise if we try to be reductionist about everything. Personally I prefer my realism to be about time rather than about causation. Time, I would say, makes causation possible, not the other way around. |
| 8390 | Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The arguments in favour of causation being observable appeal especially to the impression of pressure upon one's body, and to one's introspective awareness of willing, together with the perception of the event which one willed. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Evan Fagels] Anscombe also cites words which have causality built into their meaning. This would approach would give priority to mental causation, and would need to demonstrate that similar things happen out in the world. |
| 8392 | Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: If laws of causation are probabilistic then the law does not entail any restrictions upon the proportion of events that follow a cause: ...it can have absolutely any value from zero to one. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.3) | |
| A reaction: This objection applies to an account of laws of nature, and also to definitions of causes as events which increase probabilities. One needn't be fully committed to natural necessity, but it must form some part of the account. |
| 8399 | The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: A given type of state may be causally efficacious, but not as efficacious as an alternative states, so it is not true that even a direct cause need raise the probability of its effect. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 6.2.4) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that explaining causation in terms of probabilities entirely misses the point, which mainly concerns explaining the sense of necessitation in a cause. This idea give me a good reason for my intuition. |
| 8391 | In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: If a counterfactual holds in a possible world, that is presumably because a law holds in that world, which means there could be basic causal laws that lack all instances. But then causal laws cannot be totally supervenient on the history of the universe. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice argument, which sounds like trouble for Lewis. One could deny that the laws have to hold in the counterfactual worlds, but then we wouldn't be able to conceive them. |
| 8394 | Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: The most serious objection to any account of causation in terms of nomological relations alone is that it can't provide any account of the direction of causation. | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 8393. I am not convinced that there could be an 'account' of the direction of causation, so I am inclined to take it as given. If we take 'powers' (active properties) as basic, they would have a direction built into them. |
| 8398 | Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley] |
| Full Idea: Against the view that causation is a particular physical process, might it not be argued that the concept of causation is the concept of a relation that possesses a certain intrinsic nature, so that causation must be the same in all possible worlds? | |
| From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 5.4) | |
| A reaction: This makes the Humean assumption that laws of nature might be wildly different. I think it is perfectly possible that physical processes are the only way that causation could occur. Alternatively, the generic definition of 'cause' is just very vague. |