21 ideas
| 22396 | We take courage, temperance, wisdom and justice as moral, but Aristotle takes wisdom as intellectual [Foot] |
| Full Idea: For us there are four cardinal moral virtues: courage, temperance, wisdom and justice. But Aristotle and Aquinas call only three of these virtues moral virtues; practical wisdom (phronesis, prudentia) they class with the intellectual virtues. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], p.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure about 'for us'. How many of us rank temperance as a supreme virtue? Aristotle ranks phronesis (which I think of as 'common sense') as the key enabler of the moral virtues, making it unlike the other intellectual virtues. |
| 22397 | Wisdom is open to all, and not just to the clever or well trained [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge that can be acquired only by someone who is clever or who has access to special training is not counted as part of wisdom. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], p.6) | |
| A reaction: Consider Pierre's peasant friend Platon Karatayev in 'War and Peace'. I assume 'special training' rules out anyone with a philosophy degree. |
| 12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: There are practically no defensible examples of definitions; for all the examples we've got, practically all the words (/concepts) are undefinable. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I don't think a definition has to be defined all the way down. Aristotle is perfectly happy if you can get a concept you don't understand down to concepts you do. Understanding is the test, not further definitions. |
| 12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: People say 'exist' is ambiguous, because of the difference between 'chairs exist' and 'numbers exist'. A reply goes: the difference between the existence of chairs and the existence of numbers is strikingly like the difference between chairs and numbers. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: To say 'numbers are objects which exist' is, to me, either a funny use of 'exist' or a funny use of 'object'. I think I will now vote for the latter. Just as 'real number' was a funny use of 'number', but we seem to have got used to it. |
| 12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Using dispositional analyses in aid of ontological reductions is what empiricism taught us. If you are down on cats, reduce them to permanent possibilities of sensation; if you are down on electrons, reduce them to possibilities of experimental outcome. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The cats line is phenomenalism; the electrons line is instrumentalism. I like this as a serious warning about dispositions, even where they seem most plausible, as in the disposition of glass to break when struck. Why is it thus disposed? |
| 12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The essential problem is to explain how thinking manages reliably to preserve truth; and Associationism, as Kant rightly pointed out to Hume, hasn't the resources to do so. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: One might be able to give an associationist account of truth-preservation if one became a bit more externalist about it, so that the normal association patterns track their connections with the external world. |
| 12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The idea that there are mental representations is the idea that there are Ideas minus the idea that Ideas are images. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Good for you, Fodor. I've always thought that the vociferous contempt with which modern philosphers refer to the old notion of 'Ideas' was grossly exaggerated. At last someone puts a clear finger on what seems to be the difficulty. |
| 6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Fodor has recently changed his mind about the innateness of concepts, which he formerly championed. | |
| From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.7 n25 | |
| A reaction: There is some sensible middle road to be charted here. We presumably do not have an innate idea of a screwdriver, but there are plenty of basic concepts in logic and perception that are plausibly thought of as innate. |
| 12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in any mental life could be the concept CAT unless it is satisfied by cats. If you haven't got a concept that applies to cats, that entails that you haven't got the CAT concept. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Of course, having a concept that applies to cats doesn't entail that you have the CAT concept. Quine's 'gavagai', for example. I think Fodor is right in this idea. |
| 12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: I argue for a very strong version of psychological atomism; one according to which what concepts you have is conceptually and metaphysically independent of what epistemic capacities you have. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a frontal assault on the tradition of Frege, Dummett and Peacocke. I immediately find Fodor's approach more congenial, because he wants to say what a concept IS, rather than just place it within some larger scheme of things. |
| 12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: The definition theory says that concepts are complex structures which entail their constituents. By saying this, it guarantees both the connection between content and necessity, and the connection between concept individuation and concept possession. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: He cites Pinker as a spokesman for the definitional view. This is the view Fodor attacks, in favour of his atomistic account. He adds in a note that his view also offered to reduce conceptual truth to logical truth. |
| 12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: Many concepts have no prototypes; and there are many complex concepts whose prototypes aren't related to the prototypes of their constituents in the way compositional explanation of productivity and systematicity requires. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: His favourite example of the latter is 'pet fish', where the prototype of 'pet' is hardly ever a fish, and the prototype of 'fish' is usually much bigger than goldfish. Fodor is arguing that concepts are atomic. |
| 12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: If the theory theory has a distinctive and coherent answer to the 'What's a concept?' question on offer, it's a well-kept secret. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Not an argument, but worth recording as an attitude. I certainly agree that accounts which offer some sort of answer to 'What is a concept?' have an immediate head's start on those which don't. |
| 12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
| Full Idea: English has no semantics. Learning English isn't learning a theory about what its sentences mean, it's learning how to associate its sentences with the corresponding thoughts. | |
| From: Jerry A. Fodor (Concepts:where cogn.science went wrong [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds remarkably close to John Locke's account of language (which I always thought was seriously underrated). Presumably we can then say that the 'thought' (or Locke's 'idea') is the meaning, which is old-fashioned real meanings. |
| 22402 | Most people think virtues can be displayed in bad actions [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Hardly anyone sees any difficulty in the thought that virtues may sometimes be displayed in bad actions. The courage of the villain can be spoken of as quite unproblematic. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], III) | |
| A reaction: She cites Peter Geach as a sole opponent of this view. The courage of the entire German army in WWII seems to fall into this category. The boldness of villains has to impress the virtuous but timid. |
| 23145 | Virtues are intended to correct design flaws in human beings [Foot, by Driver] |
| Full Idea: A popular view (expressed by Philippa Foot) is that the virtues work to 'correct' for the baser human impulses and motives. …Virtues are solutions to design flaws in human beings. | |
| From: report of Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978]) by Julia Driver - The Virtues and Human Nature 1 | |
| A reaction: Quite a plausible thought. Not so much design flaws, though, as natural traits of character that suited hunter gatherers but not modern cosmopolitan capitalists. Driver disagrees. |
| 22401 | Actions can be in accordance with virtue, but without actually being virtuous [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Some actions are in accordance with virtue without requiring virtue for their performance, whereas others are both in accordance with virtue and such as to show possession of a virtue. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], p.13) | |
| A reaction: She cites the case of an honest trader, who is honest because of self-interest. She is disentangling Kant from his daft idea that only dutiful (and reluctant) actions are virtuous. Kant was only thinking of 'in accordance' cases. |
| 22398 | Virtues are corrective, to resist temptation or strengthen motivation [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The virtues are corrective, each one standing at a point at which there is some temptation to be resisted or deficiency of motivation to be made good. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], II) | |
| A reaction: A beautifully simple and accurate observation, which I don't remember meeting in Aristotle (...though she cites him as saying that virtues concern what is difficult for us). Justice and charity are given as examples of inadequate motivation. |
| 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'). |
| 22403 | Temperance is not a virtue if it results from timidity or excessive puritanism [Foot] |
| Full Idea: In some people temperance is not a virtue, but is rather connected with timidity or with a grudging attitude to the acceptance of good things. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], III) | |
| A reaction: Timidity seems right. The grudging attitude may result from some larger doubts about pleasure, which could be plausible. |
| 22400 | Courage overcomes the fears which should be overcome, and doesn't overvalue personal safety [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The fears that count against a man's courage are those that we think he should overcome, and among them, in a special class, those that reflect the fact that he values his safety too much. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Virtues and Vices [1978], II) | |
| A reaction: I think that sentence tells us more accurately what courage is than anything in Aristotle's discussion. Ask yourself which of your fears really ought to be overcome, and particularly beware of over-valuing your own safety. But stay safe if you can! |