Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Matters of Mind' and 'What is so bad about Contradictions?'

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8 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
9123 Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen]
     Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in.
     From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3
     A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'?
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
2534 Mindless bodies are zombies, bodiless minds are ghosts [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: When bodies are conceived without mind, Zombies are the topic; when mind is conceived without bodies, Ghosts are the topic.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: Personally I am not too impressed by either possibility. I doubt whether either of them are even logically possible. Can you have a magnet without its magnetism? Can you have magnetism with no magnet?
2537 Types are properties, and tokens are events. Are they split between mental and physical, or not? [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: The question is whether mental and physical types (which are properties) are distinct, and whether mental and physical tokens (which are events) are distinct.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: Helpful. While the first one gives us the rather dodgy notion of 'property dualism', the second one seems to imply Cartesian dualism, if the events really are distinct. It seems to me that thought is an aspect of brain events, not a distinct event.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality
2532 Intentionality isn't reducible, because of its experiential aspect [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: The link between Aboutness and consciousness, plus the latter's theoretical recalcitrance, have prevented reduction of the former.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: I remain unconvinced that Aboutness (intentionality) has to be wholly (or even partly conscious). We are more interested in our conscious mental states, because those are the ones we can report to other people, and discuss.
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 1. Reductionism critique
2533 Rule-following can't be reduced to the physical [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: If you can't squeeze an 'ought' from an 'is', then the feature of normativity will prevent the reduction of Aboutness.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: A dubious argument. Hume's point is that no rational inference will get you from is to ought, but you can get there on a whim. I don't see normativity as being so intrinsically magical that it is irreducible.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
2535 The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: The dominant empirical argument for physicalism is the Overdetermination Argument: physics is closed and complete, mind is causally efficacious, the world isn't choc-full of overdetermination, so the mind is physical as well.
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: I find this argument utterly convincing. The idea that there is only one thing which is outside the interconnected causal nexus which seems to constitute the rest of reality, and that is a piece of meat inside our heads, strikes me as totally ridiculous.
18. Thought / C. Content / 10. Causal Semantics
2536 Do facts cause thoughts, or embody them, or what? [Sturgeon]
     Full Idea: Does a thought relate to its truth conditions like a tree to its age, a bee dance to its target, or smoke to its cause?
     From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro)
     A reaction: Nice question. Is truth the purpose of thoughts, or the cause of thoughts, or the constitution(?) of thoughts? I vote for the bee….but we mustn't confuse truth with truth-conditions.
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').