Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'A Study of Concepts' and 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature'

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29 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty]
     Full Idea: There is nowadays little attempt to bring "analytic philosophy" to self-consciousness by explaining how to tell a successful from an unsuccessful analysis.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 4.1)
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 3. Eristic
Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty]
     Full Idea: We can think of "rational certainty" as a matter of victory in argument rather than relation to an object known.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 3.4)
2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
Most people can't even define a chair [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Ordinary speakers are notoriously unsuccessful if asked to offer an explicit definition of the concept 'chair'.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.1)
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 9. Rejecting Truth
Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady]
     Full Idea: Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers.
     From: report of Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4
     A reaction: This may be a caricature of Rorty, but he certainly seems to be in the business of denying truth as much as possible. This strikes me as the essence of pragmatism, and as a kind of philosophical nihilism.
3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth
For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty]
     Full Idea: Truth is, in James' phrase, "what it is better for us to believe", rather than "the accurate representation of reality".
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Intro)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perceptual concepts causally influence the content of our experiences [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Once a thinker has acquired a perceptually individuated concept, his possession of that concept can causally influence what contents his experiences possess.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3)
     A reaction: Like having 35 different words for 'snow', I suppose. I'm never convinced by such claims. Having the concepts may well influence what you look at or listen to, but I don't see the deliverances of the senses being changed by the concepts.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
Perception has proto-propositions, between immediate experience and concepts [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Perceptual experience has a second layer of nonconceptual representational content, distinct from immediate 'scenarios' and from conceptual contents. These additional contents I call 'protopropositions', containing an individual and a property/relation.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3)
     A reaction: When philosophers start writing this sort of thing, I want to turn to neuroscience and psychology. I suppose the philosopher's justification for this sort of speculation is epistemological, but I see no good coming of it.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 2. Pragmatic justification
If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty]
     Full Idea: If we have a Deweyan conception of knowledge, as what we are justified in believing, we will see "justification" as a social phenomenon.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Intro)
     A reaction: I find this observation highly illuminating (though I probably need to study Dewey to understand it). There just is no absolute about whether someone is justified. How justified do you want to be?
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 8. Social Justification
Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty]
     Full Idea: If we see knowing not as having an essence, described by scientists or philosophers, but rather as a right, by current standards, to believe, then we see conversation as the ultimate context within which knowledge is to be understood.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], Ch.5), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.5
     A reaction: This teeters towards ridiculous relativism (e.g. what if the conversation is among a group of fools? - Ah, there are no fools! Politically incorrect!). However, knowledge can be social, provided we are healthily elitist. Scientists know more than us.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty]
     Full Idea: The decision about whether to have higher than usual standards for the application of words like "true" or "good" or "red" is, as far as I can see, not a debatable issue.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.6)
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / a. Mind
The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty]
     Full Idea: All that is needed for the mind-body problem to be unintelligible is for us to be nominalist, to refuse firmly to hypostasize individual properties.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.3)
     A reaction: Edelman says the mind is a process rather than a property. It might vanish if the clockspeed was turned right down? Nominalism here sounds like behaviourism or instrumentalism. Would Dennett plead guilty?
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty]
     Full Idea: We can't define the mental as intentional because pains aren't about anything, and we can't define it as phenomenal because beliefs don't feel like anything.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.2)
     A reaction: Nice, but simplistic? There is usually an intentional object for a pain, and the concepts which we use to build beliefs contain the residue of remembered qualia. It seems unlikely that any mind could have one without the other (even a computer).
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
Consciousness of a belief isn't a belief that one has it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: I dispute the view that consciousness of a belief consists in some kind of belief that one has the belief.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.2)
     A reaction: Thus if one is trying to grasp the notion of higher-order thought, it doesn't have to be just more of same but one level up. Any sensible view of the brain would suggest that one sort of activity would lead into an entirely different sort.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty]
     Full Idea: Following Wittgenstein, we shall treat the intentional as merely a subspecies of the functional.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 1.3)
     A reaction: Intriguing but obscure. Sounds wrong to me. The intentional refers to the content of thoughts, but function concerns their role. They have roles because they have content, so they can't be the same.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / b. Concepts in philosophy
Philosophy should merely give necessary and sufficient conditions for concept possession [Peacocke, by Machery]
     Full Idea: Peacocke's 'Simple Account' says philosophers should determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for possessing a concept, and psychologists should explain how the human mind meets these conditions.
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2
     A reaction: One can't restrict philosophy so easily. Psychologists could do that job themselves, and dump philosophy. Philosophy is interested in the role of concepts in meaning, experience and judgement. If psychologists can contribute to philosophy, fine.
Peacocke's account of possession of a concept depends on one view of counterfactuals [Peacocke, by Machery]
     Full Idea: Peacocke's method for discovering the possession conditions of concepts is committed to a specific account of counterfactual judgements - the Simulation Model (judgements we'd make if the antecedent were actual).
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.4
     A reaction: Machery concludes that the Simulation Model is incorrect. This appears to be Edgington's theory of conditionals, though Machery doesn't mention her.
Peacocke's account separates psychology from philosophy, and is very sketchy [Machery on Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Peacocke's Simple Account fails to connect the psychology and philosophy of concepts, it subordinates psychology to specific field of philosophy, it is committed to analytic/synthetic, and (most important) its method is very sketchy.
     From: comment on Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.5
     A reaction: Machery says Peacocke proposes a research programme, and he is not surprised that no one has every followed. Machery is a well-known champion of 'experimental philosophy', makes philosophy respond to the psychology.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
Possessing a concept is being able to make judgements which use it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Possession of any concept requires the capacity to make judgements whose content contain it.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 2.1)
     A reaction: Idea 12575 suggested that concept possession was an ability just to think about the concept. Why add that one must actually be able to make a judgement? Presumably to get truth in there somewhere. I may only speculate and fantasise, rather than judge.
A concept is just what it is to possess that concept [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: There can be no more to a concept than is determined by a correct account of what it is to possess that concept.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.2)
     A reaction: He calls this the Principle of Dependence. An odd idea, if you compare 'there is no more to a book than its possession conditions'. If the principle is right, I struggle with the proposal that a philosopher might demonstrate such a principle.
Employing a concept isn't decided by introspection, but by making judgements using it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: On the account I have been developing, what makes it the case that someone is employing one concept rather than another is not constituted by his impression of whether he is, but by complex facts about explanations of his judgements.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 7.2)
     A reaction: I presume this brings truth into the picture, and hence establishes a link between the concept and the external world, rather than merely with other concepts. There seems to be a shadowy behaviourism lurking in the background.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / b. Analysis of concepts
An analysis of concepts must link them to something unconceptualized [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: At some point a good account of conceptual mastery must tie the mastery to abilities and relations that do not require conceptualization by the thinker.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 5.3)
     A reaction: This obviously implies a physicalist commitment. Peacocke seeks, as so many do these days in philosophy of maths, to combine this commitment with some sort of Fregean "platonism without tears" (p.101). I don't buy it.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / f. Theory theory of concepts
Concepts are constituted by their role in a group of propositions to which we are committed [Peacocke, by Greco]
     Full Idea: Peacocke argues that it may be a condition of possessing a certain concept that one be fundamentally committed to certain propositions which contain it. A concept is constituted by playing a specific role in the cognitive economy of its possessor.
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal §9
     A reaction: Peacocke is talking about thought and propositions rather than language. Good for him. I always have problems with this sort of view: how can something play a role if it doesn't already have intrinsic properties to make the role possible?
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty]
     Full Idea: Nature has no preferred way of being represented.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.5)
     A reaction: Tree rings accidentally represent the passing of the years. If God went back and started again would she or he opt for a 'preferred way'?
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty]
     Full Idea: For cooler heads there must be some middle view between "meanings remain and beliefs change" and "meanings change whenever beliefs do".
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.2)
     A reaction: The second one seems blatanty false. How could we otherwise explain a change in belief? But obviously some changes in belief (e.g. about electrons) produce a change in meaning.
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty]
     Full Idea: The need to pick out objects without the help of definitions, essences, and meanings of terms produced, philosophers thought, a need for a "theory of reference".
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.3)
     A reaction: Frege's was very perceptive in noting that meaning and reference are not the same. Whether we need a 'theory' of reference is unclear. It is worth describing how it occurs.
A concept's reference is what makes true the beliefs of its possession conditions [Peacocke, by Horwich]
     Full Idea: Peacocke has a distinctive view of reference: The reference of a concept is that which will make true the primitively compelling beliefs that provide its possession conditions.
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §9
     A reaction: The first thought is that there might occasionally be more than one referent which would do the job. It seems to be a very internal view of reference, where I take reference to be much more contextual and social.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 6. Truth-Conditions Semantics
Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty]
     Full Idea: A theory of meaning, for Davidson, is not an assemblage of "analyses" of the meanings of individual terms, but rather an understanding of the inferential relations between sentences.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 6.1)
     A reaction: Put that way, the influence of Frege on Davidson is obvious. Purely algebraic expressions can have inferential relations, using variables and formal 'sentences'.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
     Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
     From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
     A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness
Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty]
     Full Idea: Only since Hegel have philosophers begun toying with the idea that the individual apart from his society is just one more animal.
     From: Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature [1980], 4.3)