15 ideas
| 5806 | Belief is the power of metarepresentation [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Belief is the power of metarepresentation. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I have always defined belief as 'commitment to truth', and this definition leaves out both parts. Where is the commitment? If hope is another metarepresentation, how does it differ from belief? I imagine things, not believing them to be true. |
| 5801 | A mouse hearing a piano played does not believe it, because it lacks concepts and understanding [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A mouse can see and hear a piano being played, but believing is something else; it requires the concept of a piano, and understanding. Mice who hear pianos being played do not believe pianos are being played. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.3) | |
| A reaction: Are we to say that when a mouse hears a piano it has no beliefs at all? Might not a belief involve images, so that a mouse calls up appropriate images from previous experiences, which are in a grey area on the edge of belief? |
| 5802 | Representations are in the head, but their content is not, as stories don't exist in their books [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Representations are in the head, but their content is not; in this sense, the mind isn't in the head any more than stories (i.e. story contents) are in books. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §1.6) | |
| A reaction: This is the final consequence of Putnam's idea that meanings ain't in the head. Intentionality is an extraordinary bridge between the brain and the external world. The ontology of stories, and musical compositions, is one philosophy's deepest problems. |
| 5809 | Some activities are performed better without consciousness of them [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Some tasks (playing the piano, speaking foreign languages, playing fast sports) are best performed when the agent is largely unconscious of the details. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Ch.4 n16) | |
| A reaction: A significant point, but it supports the evolutionary view, which is that what matters is success, and consciousness will switch on or off, whichever promotes the activity best. |
| 3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
| Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
| A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
| 5808 | Qualia are just the properties objects are represented as having [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The Representational Thesis of mind identifies the qualities of experience - qualia - with the properties objects are represented as having. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §3.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to challenge the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, of which I am very fond. Is 'looks beautiful' a property of an object? Is the feeling of anger a property of an object? Qualia are properties of brains? |
| 5805 | Introspection does not involve looking inwards [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: The 'problem' of introspection evaporates once one understands that it is not a process in which one looks inward. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: I take it that when we introspect we look at the contents of thoughts, which are representations of the external world, on the whole. But surely only the connections of those contents with memories can be seen inwardly? |
| 5807 | Introspection is the same as the experience one is introspecting [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: Introspection has no phenomenology or, if it does, it always has the same phenomenology as the experience one is introspecting. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2.4) | |
| A reaction: There is a difference between looking at a tree, and being aware of yourself looking at a tree. You can be faintly depressed, and then become aware that you are faintly depressed. He is nearly right. |
| 5803 | In a representational theory of mind, introspection is displaced perception [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: On a representational theory of the mind, introspection becomes an instance of displaced perception - knowledge of internal (mental) facts via an awareness of external (physical) objects. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds close to a behaviourist (e.g. Ryle) account of introspection, via observing one's own behaviour. The word 'displaced' is an easy one, concealing a multitude of questions. |
| 5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
| A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
| 5804 | A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: A representational theory of the mind is an externalist theory of the mind. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], §2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably brain events bring the world into the mind, so the world must be mentioned in explaining the mind. Maybe 'externalism' sounds grand, but is stating the boringly obvious. Explanations of mind need no mention of external particulars. |
| 5800 | All mental facts are representation, which consists of informational functions [Dretske] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that all mental facts are representational facts, and that all representational facts are facts about informational functions. | |
| From: Fred Dretske (Naturalizing the Mind [1997], Prol) | |
| A reaction: The first half of the thesis seems a bit difficult to disagree with, but that a fact is 'represented' may not be the essence of that fact. The biggest mystery is the content, not its representation. And everything is 'information' about everything else. |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
| A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |
| 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'). |