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All the ideas for 'The Really Hard Problem', 'De Anima' and 'The Analysis of Mind'

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67 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
An account is either a definition or a demonstration [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Every account is either a definition or a demonstration.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 407a24)
     A reaction: That is, it is either a summary of the thing's essential nature, or it is a proof of some natural fact, starting from first principles.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 4. Contraries
From one thing alone we can infer its contrary [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: One member of a pair of contraries is sufficient to discern both itself and its opposite.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 411a02)
     A reaction: This obviously requires prior knowledge of what the opposite is. He says you can infer the crooked from the straight. You can hardly use light in isolation to infer dark [see DA 418b17]. What's the opposite of a pig?
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / a. Numbers
We perceive number by the denial of continuity [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Number we perceive by the denial of continuity.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 425a19)
     A reaction: This is a key thought. A being (call it 'Parmenides') which sees all Being as One would make no distinctions of identity, and so could not count anything. Why would they want numbers?
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 4. Ontological Dependence
What is prior is always potentially present in what is next in order [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: What is prior is always potentially present in what is next in order … - for example, the triangle in the quadrilateral, or the nutritive part of animate things in the perceptual part.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 414a28)
     A reaction: 'Prior' seems to be a value for Aristotle, which is never present in modern discussions of ontological relations and structure. Priority tracks back to first principles.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
Sight is the essence of the eye, fitting its definition; the eye itself is just the matter [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If the eye were an animal, sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the eye which corresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed it is no longer an eye,except in name.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412b18)
     A reaction: This is a drastic view of form as merely function, which occasionally appears in Aristotle. To say a blind eye is not an eye is a tricky move in metaphysics. So what is it? In some sense it is still an eye.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
The substance is the cause of a thing's being [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The cause of its being for everything is its substance.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 415b12)
     A reaction: It sounds as if 'substance' here means essence. We no longer see the cause of something's being as intrinsic to the thing. Only previous causes produce things. The 'form' must be the intrinsic cause of being.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
Matter is potential, form is actual [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Matter is potentiality, whereas form is actuality.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412a09)
     A reaction: Plato said mud has no Form. What did Aristotle think of that? I only ask because to me mud looks like unformed actuality.
Scientists explain anger by the matter, dialecticians by the form and the account [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: For a dialectician anger is a desire for retaliation or something like that, where for a natural scientist it is a boiling of the blood and hoot stuff around the heart. The scientist gives the matter, where the dialectician give the form and the account.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 403a30)
     A reaction: A nice illumination of hylomorphism. Notice that the dialectician also give the account [logos].
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / c. Tabula rasa
The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The intellect is in a way potentially the object of thought, but nothing in actuality before it thinks, and the potentiality is like that of the tablet on which there is nothing actually written.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 429b31)
     A reaction: This passage is referred to by Leibniz, and is the origin of the concept of the 'tabula rasa'. Aristotle need not be denying innate ideas, but merely describing the phenomenology of the moment before a train of thought begins.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perception of sensible objects is virtually never wrong [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Perception of the special objects of sense is never in error or admits the least possible amount of falsehood.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 428b19)
     A reaction: This is, surprisingly, the view which was raised and largely rejected in 'Theaetetus'. It became a doctrine of Epicureanism, and seems to make Aristotle a thoroughgoing empiricist, though that is not so clear elsewhere. I think Aristotle is right.
Perception necessitates pleasure and pain, which necessitates appetite [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Where there is perception there is also pleasure and pain, and where there are these, of necessity also appetite.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 413b23)
Why do we have many senses, and not just one? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: A possible line of inquiry would be into the question for what purpose we have many senses and not just one.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 425b04)
Our minds take on the form of what is being perceived [Aristotle, by Mares]
     Full Idea: Aristotle famously holds that in perception our minds take on the form of what is being perceived.
     From: report of Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE]) by Edwin D. Mares - A Priori 08.2
     A reaction: [References in Aristotle needed here...]
Why can't we sense the senses? And why do senses need stimuli? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Why is there not also a sense of the senses themselves? And why don't the senses produce sensation without external bodies, since they contain elements?
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 417a03)
Sense organs aren't the end of sensation, or they would know what does the sensing [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Flesh is not the ultimate sense-organ. To suppose that it is requires the supposition that on contact with the object the sense-organ itself discerns what is doing the discerning.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 426b16)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
Many objects of sensation are common to all the senses [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Common sense-objects are movement, rest, number, shape and size, which are not special to any one sense, but common to all.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 418a18)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Some objects of sensation are unique to one sense, where deception is impossible [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Now I call that sense-object 'special' that does not admit of being perceived by another sense and about which it is impossible to be deceived.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 418a15)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
In moral thought images are essential, to be pursued or avoided [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: In the thinking soul, images play the part of percepts, and the assertion or negation of good or bad is invariably accompanied by avoidance or pursuit, which is the reason for the soul's never thinking without an image.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 431a15)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
In 1921 Russell abandoned sense-data, and the gap between sensation and object [Russell, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: In 'The Analysis of Mind' Russell gave up talk of 'sense-data', and ceased to distinguish between the act of sensing and what is sensed.
     From: report of Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2
     A reaction: This seems to lead towards the modern 'adverbial' account of sensing, where I don't sense 'data', but where qualia (such as redness) are our particular mode of directly perceiving objects, where insects might directly perceive them in a different mode.
Seeing is not in itself knowledge, but is separate from what is seen, such as a patch of colour [Russell]
     Full Idea: Undeniably, knowledge comes through seeing, but it is a mistake to regard the mere seeing itself as knowledge; if we are so to regard it, we must distinguish the seeing from what is seen; a patch of colour is one thing, and our seeing it is another.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII)
     A reaction: This is Russell's 1921 explanation of why he adopted sense-data (but he rejects them later in this paragraph). This gives a simplistic impression of what he intended, which has three components: the object, the 'sensibile', and the sense-datum.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems
We cannot assume that the subject actually exists, so we cannot distinguish sensations from sense-data [Russell]
     Full Idea: If we are to avoid a perfectly gratuitous assumption, we must dispense with the subject as one of the actual ingredients of the world; but when we do this, the possibility of distinguishing the sensation from the sense-datum vanishes.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII)
     A reaction: This is the reason why Russell himself rejected sense-data. It is more normal, I think, to reject them simply as being superfluous. If the subject can simply perceive the sense-data, why can't they just perceive the object more directly?
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
We may think when we wish, but not perceive, because universals are within the mind [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Perception is of particular things, but knowledge is of universals, which are in a way in the soul itself. Thus a man may think whenever he wishes, but not perceive.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 417b22)
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
It is possible the world came into existence five minutes ago, complete with false memories [Russell]
     Full Idea: There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], p.159)
     A reaction: One of the great sceptical arguments! At a stroke it undermines forever any dreams that memories are totally certain. This is an extra scepticism, which arises if you decide that current experience IS totally certain.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / b. Anti-reliabilism
Knowledge needs more than a sensitive response; the response must also be appropriate [Russell]
     Full Idea: Accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show knowledge, but must be reinforced by appropriateness, i.e. suitability of realising one's purpose.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], p.261), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 66 'Rel'
     A reaction: The aim of 'realising one's purpose' puts a very pragmatist spin on this. The point is a good one, and seems to apply particularly to Nozick's accurate 'tracking' account of knowledge.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 2. Demonstration
Demonstration starts from a definition of essence, so we can derive (or conjecture about) the properties [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: In demonstration a definition of the essence is required as starting point, so that definitions which do not enable us to discover the derived properties, or which fail to facilitate even a conjecture about them, must obviously be dialectical and futile.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 402b25)
     A reaction: Interesting to see 'dialectical' used as a term of abuse! Illuminating. For scientific essentialism, then, demonstration is filling out the whole story once the essence has been inferred. It is circular, because essence is inferred from accidents.
Demonstrations move from starting-points to deduced conclusions [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Demonstrations are both from a starting-point and have a sort of end, namely the deduction or the conclusion.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 407a25)
     A reaction: A starting point has to be a first principle [arché]. It has been observed that Aristotle explains demonstration very carefully, but rarely does it in his writings.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
To understand a triangle summing to two right angles, we need to know the essence of a line [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: In mathematics it is useful for the understanding of the property of the equality of the interior angles of a triangle to two right angles to know the essential nature of the straight and the curved or of the line and the plane.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 402b18)
     A reaction: Although Aristotle was cautious about this, he clearly endorses here the idea that essences play an explanatory role in geometry. The caution is in the word 'useful', rather than 'vital'. How else can we arrive at this result, though?
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The soul seems to be universally defined by three features, so to speak, the production of movement, perception and incorporeality.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 405b12)
     A reaction: 'Incorporeality' begs the question, but its appearance is a phenomenon that needs explaining. 'Movement' is an interesting Greek view. Nowadays we would presumably added intentional states, and the contents and meaning of thoughts. No 'reason'?
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
Aristotle led to the view that there are several souls, all somewhat physical [Aristotle, by Martin/Barresi]
     Full Idea: On the later views inspired by Aristotle's 'De Anima' there was no longer just one soul, but several, and each of them had a great deal in common with the body.
     From: report of Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE]) by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.17
     A reaction: Is this based on the faculties of sophia, episteme, nous, techne and phronesis, or is it based on the vegetative, appetitive and rational parts? The latter, I presume. Not so interesting, not so modular.
Soul is seen as what moves, or what is least physical, or a combination of elements [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Three ways have been handed down in which people define the soul: what is most capable of moving things, since it moves itself; or a body which is the most fine-grained and least corporeal; or that it is composed of the elements.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 409b19)
     A reaction: A nice example of Aristotle beginning an investigation by idenfying the main explanations which have been 'handed down' from previous generations. These three aren't really in competition, and might all be true.
Psuché is the form and actuality of a body which potentially has life [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Soul is substance as the form of a natural body which potentially has life, and since this substance is actuality, soul will be the actuality of such a body.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412a20)
     A reaction: To understand what Aristotle means by 'form' you must, I'm afraid, read the 'Metaphysics'. Form isn't shape, but rather the essence which bestows the individual identity on the thing. 'Psuche is the essence of man' might be a better slogan.
The soul is the cause or source of movement, the essence of body, and its end [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The soul is the cause [aitia] of its body alike in three senses which we explicitly recognise. It is (a) the source or origin of movement, it is (b) the end, and it is (c) the essence of the whole living body.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 415b09)
     A reaction: 'Aitia' also means explanation, so these are three ways to explain a human being, by what it does, why what it is for, and by what it intrinsically is. Activity, purpose and nature.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind
Understanding is impossible, if it involves the understanding having parts [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: How could a spatial understanding understand anything? Wiil it do so with parts, seen as magnitudes or as points? If it is points, the understanding will never get through them all. If magnitudes, it will understand things an unlimited number of times.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 407a09)
     A reaction: This seems to be a strong commitment to the idea that the mind is not physical because it is necessarily non-spatial.
If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If the soul is composed of parts of the body, or the harmony of the elements composing the body, there will be many souls, and everywhere in the body.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 408a15)
     A reaction: We will ignore "everywhere in the body", but the rest seems to me exactly right. The idea of the unity of the soul is an understandable and convenient assumption, but it leads to all sorts of confusion. A crowd remains unified if half its members leave.
If a soul have parts, what unites them? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: What is it that holds the soul together, if it by nature has parts? For surely it cannot be the body. For it seems on the contrary that it is rather the soul that holds the body together?
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 411b05)
     A reaction: This is the hylomorphic view of a human, that the soul is the form that give unity to the matter. To do the job, presumably the form or soul need an intrinsic unity of its own, and hence cannot have parts. Apart from the need for unifying glue.
What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If soul has parts, what holds them together? Not body, because that is united by soul. If a thing unifies the soul, then THAT is the soul (unless it too has parts, which would lead to an infinite regress). Best to say the soul is a unity.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 411b10)
     A reaction: You don't need a 'thing' to unify something (like a crowd). I say the body holds the soul together, not physically, but because the body's value permeates thought. The body is the focused interest of the soul, like parents kept together by their child.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The soul is in a way all the things that exist, for all the things that exist are objects either of perception or of thought.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 431b20)
     A reaction: Sounds very like Berkeley's empirical version of idealism. It also seems to imply modern externalist (anti-individualist) understandings of the mind (which strike me as false).
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind
Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: The emerging consensus is that we probably overrate the power of conscious experience in our lives. Freud, of course, said the same thing for different reasons.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology')
     A reaction: [He cites Pockett, Banks and Gallagher 2006]. Freud was concerned with big deep secrets, but the modern view concerns ordinary decisions and perceptions. An important idea, which should incline us all to become Nietzscheans.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 1. Faculties
If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: For those who divide the soul into parts, and divide and separate them in accord with their capacities, the parts turn out to be very many.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 433a32)
     A reaction: I accept the warning. The capacities which interest me are those which seem to generate our basic ontology, but if the capacities become fine-grained, they are legion.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Self-moving animals must have desires, and that entails having imagination [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If an animal has a desiring part, it is capable of moving itself. A desiring part, however, cannot exist without an imagination, and all imagination is either rationally calculative or perceptual. Hence in the latter the other animals also have a share.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 433b27)
     A reaction: Maybe if you asked people whether other animals are imaginative they would say no, but this argument is strong support for the positive view.
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
In perception, the self is just a logical fiction demanded by grammar [Russell]
     Full Idea: In perception, the idea of the subject appears to be a logical fiction, like mathematical points and instants; it is introduced, not because observation reveals it, but because it is linguistically convenient and apparently demanded by grammar.
     From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], Lec. VIII)
     A reaction: In 1912, Russell had felt that both the Cogito, and the experience of meta-thought, had confirmed the existence of a non-permanent ego, but here he offers a Humean rejection. His notion of a 'logical fiction' is behaviouristic. I believe in the Self.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
Emotion involves the body, thinking uses the mind, imagination hovers between them [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Most affections (like anger) seem to involve the body, but thinking seems distinctive of the soul. But if this requires imagination, it too involves the body. Only pure mental activity would prove the separation of the two.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 403a08-)
     A reaction: What an observant man! Modern neuroscience is bringing out the fact that emotion is central to all mental life. We can't recognise faces without it. I say imagination is essential to pure reason, and that seems emotional too. Reason is physical.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
The soul (or parts of it) is not separable from the body [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: That the soul is not separable from the body - or that certain parts of it are not, if it naturally has parts - is quite clear.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 413a04)
     A reaction: This doesn't make him a physicalist. I've seen him described in modern terms as a functionalist, but that makes the mind abstract and the body concrete. Perhaps he is an 'Integrationist' (as Descartes might be in his 'pilot' passage).
All the emotions seem to involve the body, simultaneously with the feeling [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The affections of the soul - spiritedness, fear, pity, confidence, joy, loving, hating - would all seem to involve the body, since at the same time as these the body is affected in a certain way.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 403a16)
     A reaction: Aristotle was not a physicalist, but this resembles the pilot-in-the-ship passage in Descartes, accepting the very close links.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
If soul is separate from body, why does it die when the body dies? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If the soul is something distinct from the mixture, why then are the being for flesh and for the other parts of the animal destroyed at the same time?
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 408a25)
     A reaction: An obvious response to this reasonable question is to say that we see the body die, but not the soul, so the soul doesn't die. The problem is then to find some evidence for the soul's continued existence.
Thinkers place the soul within the body, but never explain how they are attached [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There is another absurdity which follows, …since they attach the soul to a body, and place it in the body, without further determining the cause due to which this attachment comes about. …Yet this seems necessary, because this association produces action.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 407b14)
     A reaction: A clear statement of the interaction objection to full substance dualism. Critics say that dualists have to invoke a 'miracle' at this point.
Early thinkers concentrate on the soul but ignore the body, as if it didn't matter what body received the soul [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Early thinkers try only to describe the soul, but they fail to go into any kind of detail about the body which is to receive the soul, as if it were possible (as it is in the Pythagorean tales) for just any old soul to be clothed in just any old body.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 407b20)
     A reaction: Precisely. Anyone who seriously believes that a human mind can be reincarnated in a flea needs their mind examined. Actually they need their brain examined, but that probably wouldn't impress them. I can, of course, imagine moving into a flea.
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
Aristotle has a problem fitting his separate reason into the soul, which is said to be the form of the body [Ackrill on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: In 'De Anima' Aristotle cannot fit his account of separable reason - which is not the form of a body - into his general theory that the soul is the form of the body.
     From: comment on Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE]) by J.L. Ackrill - Aristotle on Eudaimonia p.33
     A reaction: A penetrating observation. Possibly the biggest challenge for a modern physicalist is to give a reductive account of 'pure' reason, in terms of brain events or brain functions.
Does the mind think or pity, or does the whole man do these things? [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Perhaps it would be better not to say that the soul pities or learns or thinks, but that the man does in virtue of the soul.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 408b12)
     A reaction: This can be seen as incipient behaviourism in Aristotle's view. It echoes the functionalist view that what matters is not what the mind is, or is made of, but what it does.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: We should not enquire whether the soul and the body are one thing, any more than whether the wax and its imprint are, or in general whether the matter of each thing is one with that of which it is the matter.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412b06)
     A reaction: This is his hylomorphist view of objects, so that the soul is the 'form' which bestows identity (and power) on the matter of which it is made. This remark is thoroughly physicalist.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: There is still some hope for something like identity theory for sensations. But almost no one believes that strict identity theory will work for more complex mental states. Strict identity is stronger than type neurophysicalism.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Ontology')
     A reaction: It is so hard to express the problem. What needs to be explained? How can one bunch of neurons represent many different things? It's not like computing. That just transfers the data to brains, where the puzzling stuff happens.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Thinking is not perceiving, but takes the form of imagination and speculation [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Thinking, then, is something other than perceiving, and its two kinds are held to be imagination and supposition.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 427b28)
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality
Aristotle makes belief a part of reason, but sees desires as separate [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Aristotle insists [against Plato] that desires, even rational desires, are a capacity distinct from reason, as is perception. Belief is included within reason. And he sometimes distinguishes steps of reasoning from insight.
     From: report of Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 428-432) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Shifting'
     A reaction: So the standard picture of desire as permanently in conflict with reason comes from Aristotle. Maybe Plato is right on that one (though he doesn't say much about it). Since objectivity needs knowledge, reason does need belief.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Self-controlled follow understanding, when it is opposed to desires [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Self-controlled people, even when they desire and have an appetite for things, do not do these things for which they have the desire, but instead follow the understanding.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 433a06)
     A reaction: If modern discussions would stop talking of 'weakness of will', and talk instead of 'control' and its lack, the whole issue would become clearer. Akrasia is then seen, for example, as an action of the whole person, not of some defective part.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value
Morality is normative because it identifies best practices among the normal practices [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: Morality is 'normative' in the sense that it consists of the extraction of ''good' or 'excellent' practices from common practices.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Naturalism')
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: Two explanations came forward in the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Altruism is either 1) person-based reciprocal altruism, or 2) gene-based kin altruism.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Darwin')
     A reaction: Flanagan obviously thinks there is also 'genuine psychological atruism'. Presumably we don't explain mathematics or music or the desire to travel as either contracts or genetics, so we have other explanations available.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia
We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: It would be nice if I could advance the case for Eudaimonics - empirical enquiry into the nature, causes, and constituents of flourishing, …and the case for some ways of living and being as better than others.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 4 'Normative')
     A reaction: Things seem to be moving in that direction. Lots of statistics about happiness have been appearing.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / a. Nature of pleasure
Pleasure and pain are perceptions of things as good or bad [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: To experience pleasure or pain is to be active with the perceptive mean in relation to good or bad as such.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 431a10)
     A reaction: A bizarre view which is interesting, but strikes me as wrong. We are drawn towards pleasure, but judgement can pull us away again, and 'good' is in the judgement, not in the feeling.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: What Marx called 'alienation' is the widespread condition of not being able to discover what one wants, or not being remotely positioned to achieve.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 2 'Expanding')
     A reaction: I took alienation to concern people's relationship to the means of production in their trade. On Flanagan's definition I would expect almost everyone aged under 20 to count as alienated.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
Nature does nothing in vain [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Nature does nothing in vain.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 434a31)
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
If all movement is either pushing or pulling, there must be a still point in between where it all starts [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Every movement being either a push or a pull, there must be a still point as with the circle, and this will be the point of departure for the movement.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 433b26)
Movement is spatial, alteration, withering or growth [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There a four sorts of movement - spatial movement, alteration, withering and growth.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 406a12)
     A reaction: Large parts of Aristotle's writings attempt to explain these four.
Practical reason is based on desire, so desire must be the ultimate producer of movement [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: There seem to be two producers of movement, either desire or practical intellect, but practical reason begins in desire.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 433a16)
Movement can be intrinsic (like a ship) or relative (like its sailors) [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is not necessary for what moves things to be itself moving. For a thing can be moving in two ways - with reference to something else, or intrinsically. A ship is moving intrinsically, but sailors move because they are in something that is moving.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 406a03)
     A reaction: I love the way that Aristotle is desperate to explain the puzzle of movement, yet we just take it for granted. Very illuminating about puzzles. Newton's First Law of Motion.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / b. Laws of motion
If something is pushed, it pushes back [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: What has pushed something else makes the latter push as well.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 435b30)
     A reaction: Aristotle seems to have spotted that this is intrinsic to massive bodies, and is not just friction etc. Newton adds a vector to Aristotle's insight.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
What is born has growth, a prime, and a withering away [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: What has been born must have growth, a prime of life, and a time of withering away.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 434a23)
     A reaction: Modern biologists don't seem much interested in the 'prime of life', but for Aristotle it is crucial, as the fulfilment of a thing's essential nature. Nietzsche would probably agree with Aristotle on this. We dread seeing one period of life as 'superior'.
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom [Flanagan]
     Full Idea: Buddhism rejected the idea of a creator God, and the unchanging self [atman]. They accept the appearance-reality distinction, reward for virtue [karma], suffering defining our predicament, and that liberation [nirvana] is possible through wisdom.
     From: Owen Flanagan (The Really Hard Problem [2007], 3 'Buddhism')
     A reaction: [Compressed] Flanagan is an analytic philosopher and a practising Buddhist. Looking at a happiness map today which shows Europeans largely happy, and Africans largely miserable, I can see why they thought suffering was basic.