Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'The Making of a Philosopher' and 'The Evolution of Physics'

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4 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind

4691	If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn]
	Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech.
	From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6)
	A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 3. Meaning as Speaker's Intention

4690	If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn]
	Full Idea: The importance of Grice's analysis of speaker meaning is that it offers the prospect of analysing the whole phenomenon of linguistic meaning in terms of propositional attitudes… thus turning semantics into a department of the philosophy of mind.
	From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 5)
	A reaction: Although meaning being truth conditions is the most cited theory, the reduction of semantics to an aspect of mind also seems almost orthodox now. But how do the symbols 'represent' the attitudes?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

7903	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').

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields

18202	The concept of a field gradually replaced the substances in explaining relations between charges [Einstein/Infeld]
	Full Idea: In the beginning the field concept was no more than a means of facilitating the understanding of phenomena. ...In the new field language it is the field and not the charges themselves which is essential. The substance was overshadowed by the field.
	From: Einstein,A/Infeld,L (The Evolution of Physics [1938], p.151), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics II.4
	A reaction: This is very important for philosophical metaphysicians, especially those like me who want to explain the universe by the nature of the stuff that composes it. The 'stuff' had better not be simplistic individual 'substances'.