7 ideas
| 3986 | The 'intentional stance' is a way of interpreting an entity by assuming it is rational and self-aware [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The 'intentional stance' is the tactic of interpreting an entity by adopting the presupposition that it is an approximation of the ideal of an optimally designed (i.e. rational) self-regarding agent. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: This is Dennett's 'instrumentalism', a descendant of behaviourism, which strikes me as a pragmatist's evasion of the ontological problems of mind which should interest philosophers |
| 3987 | Like the 'centre of gravity', desires and beliefs are abstract concepts with no actual existence [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Like such abstracta as centres of gravity and parallelograms of force, the beliefs and desires posited by the highest intentional stance have no independent and concrete existence. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why we shouldn't one day have a physical account of the distinctive brain events involved in a belief or a desire |
| 3984 | The nature of content is entirely based on its functional role [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All attributions of content are founded on an appreciation of the functional roles of the items in question. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: This seems wrong to me. How can anything's nature be its function? It must have intrinsic characteristics in order to have the function. This is an evasion. |
| 7319 | If we give up synonymy, we have to give up significance, meaning and sense [Grice/Strawson] |
| Full Idea: If we are to give up the notion of sentence-synonymy as senseless, we must give up the notion of sentence-significance (of a sentence having meaning) as senseless too. But then perhaps we might as well give up the notion of sense. | |
| From: P Grice / P Strawson (In Defense of a Dogma [1956]), quoted by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.2 | |
| A reaction: This is very prescient. Nearly all American philosophers seem to embrace Quine's view of analyticity (the philosophical equivalent of Americans putting a man on the moon?), but have they digested the implications (which Quine later largely admits)? |
| 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'). |
| 3983 | Learning is evolution in the brain [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Learning is evolution in the brain. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.238) | |
| A reaction: This is a rather non-conscious, associationist view, connected to Dawkins' idea of 'memes'. It seems at least partially correct. |
| 3985 | Biology is a type of engineering, not a search for laws of nature [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Biology is not a science like physics, in which one should strive to find 'laws of nature', but a species of engineering. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Daniel Dennett on himself [1994], p.239) | |
| A reaction: Yes. This is also true of chemistry, which has always struck me as minitiarised car mechanics. |