5 ideas
| 7441 | Experiences are defined by their causal role, and causal roles belong to physical states [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The definitive characteristic of any experience is its causal role, its most typical causes and effects; but we materialists believe that these causal roles which belong by analytic necessity to experiences belong in fact to certain physical states. | |
| From: David Lewis (An Argument for the Identity Theory [1966], §I) | |
| A reaction: This is the Causal version of functionalism, which Armstrong also developed. The word 'typical' leads later to a teleological element in the theory (e.g. in Lycan). There are other things to say about mental states than just their causal role. |
| 7442 | 'Pain' contingently names the state that occupies the causal role of pain [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: On my theory, 'pain' is a contingent name - that is, a name with different denotations in different possible worlds - since in any world, 'pain' names whatever state happens in that world to occupy the causal role definitive of pain. | |
| From: David Lewis (An Argument for the Identity Theory [1966], §II n6) | |
| A reaction: Better to say that 'pain' (like 'sound') is ambiguous. It is indiscriminately used by English-speakers to mean [1] the raw quale that we experience when damaged, and [2] whatever it is that leads to pain behaviour. Maybe frogs have 2 but not 1. |
| 15160 | Davidson rejected ordinary meaning, and just used truth and reference instead [Davidson, by Soames] |
| Full Idea: Davidson held that knowledge of truth and reference could give us a notion of meaning. He embraced Quine's rejection of analyticity, synonymy and ordinary meaning, and substituted truth and reference, when there was something genuine to capture. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Semantics for Natural Languages [1970]) by Scott Soames - Philosophy of Language 2.3 | |
| A reaction: I always get a warm glow when anyone suggests that the concept of meaning involves the concept of truth. I largely reject Quine. Davidson made a helpful suggestion! |
| 14612 | Davidson aimed to show that language is structured by first-order logic [Davidson, by Smart] |
| Full Idea: Davidson's program was to show the underlying structure of natural languages as that of first-order logic. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Semantics for Natural Languages [1970], 2) by J.J.C. Smart - The Tenseless Theory of Time 2 | |
| A reaction: First order logic just reasons about a domain of objects with predicates attached to them. Language appears to refer to properties and relations as well as objects. |
| 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'). |