33 ideas
5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Any good philosophy will need to offer wisdom about who we are as well as about how we ought to be. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 14) | |
A reaction: This sop should be accepted gratefully by fans of bioethics, who seem inclined to think that describing 'how we are' is all that needs to be said. Maybe the key wisdom lies in the relationship between the 'is' and the 'ought' of human nature. |
17082 | Paradox: why do you analyse if you know it, and how do you analyse if you don't? [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The alleged paradox of analysis asserts that if one knew what was involved in the concept, one would not need the analysis; if one did not know what was involved in the concept, no analysis could be forthcoming. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1) | |
A reaction: This is the sort of problem that seemed to bug Plato a lot. You certainly can't analyse something if you don't understand it, but it seems obvious that you can illuminatingly analyse something of which you have a reasonable understanding. |
5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The inability of science to provide ethical wisdom is partly responsible for our resistance to the scientific image. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 14) | |
A reaction: This seems right. A.J. Ayer, for example, declared "I believe in science", and his account of ethics was vacuously nihilistic. A description of the mechanisms of moral life is not the same as ethical wisdom. |
16643 | Accidents always remain suited to a subject [Bonaventura] |
Full Idea: An accident's aptitudinal relationship to a subject is essential, and this is never taken away from accidents….for it is true to say that they are suited to a subject. | |
From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], IV.12.1.1.1c) | |
A reaction: This is the compromise view that allows accidents to be separated, for Transubstantiation, while acknowledging that we identify them with their subjects. |
16696 | Successive things reduce to permanent things [Bonaventura] |
Full Idea: Everything successive reduces to something permanent. | |
From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], II.2.1.1.3 ad 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2 | |
A reaction: Avicenna first took successive entities seriously, but Bonaventure and Aquinas seem to have rejected them, or given reductive accounts of them. It resembles modern actualists versus modal realists. |
5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Explanation does not entail prediction. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 73n) | |
A reaction: Presumably the inverse of this is also true, as we might be able to predict through pure induction, without knowing why something happened. We predict that smoking is likely to cause cancer. Complex things might be explicable but unpredictable. |
17087 | The 'symmetry thesis' says explanation and prediction only differ pragmatically [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The 'symmetry thesis' holds that there is only a pragmatic, or epistemic, but no logical, difference between explaining and predicting. …The only difference is in what the producer of the deduction knows just before the deduction is produced. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 4) | |
A reaction: He cites Mill has holding this view. It seems elementary to me that I can explain something but not predict it, or predict it but not explain it. The latter case is just Humean habitual induction. |
17081 | Usually explanations just involve giving information, with no reference to the act of explanation [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Plato, Aristotle, Mill and Hempel believed that an explanatory product can be characterized solely in terms of the kind of information it conveys, no reference to the act of explaining being required. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1) | |
A reaction: Achinstein says it's about acts, because the same information could be an explanation, or a critique, or some other act. Ruben disagrees, and so do I. |
17092 | An explanation needs the world to have an appropriate structure [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Objects or events in the world must really stand in some appropriate 'structural' relation before explanation is possible. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7) | |
A reaction: An important point. These days people talk of 'dependence relations'. Some sort of structure to reality (mainly imposed by the direction of time and causation, I would have thought) is a prerequisite of finding a direction to explanation. |
17090 | Most explanations are just sentences, not arguments [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Typically, full explanations are not arguments, but singular sentences, or conjunctions thereof. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 6) | |
A reaction: This is mainly objecting to the claim that explanations are deductions from laws and facts. I agree with Ruben. Explanations are just information, I think. Of course, Aristotle's demonstrations are arguments. |
17094 | The causal theory of explanation neglects determinations which are not causal [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The fault of the causal theory of explanation was to overlook the fact that there are more ways of making something what it is or being responsible for it than by causing it. …Causation is a particular type of determinative relation. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7) | |
A reaction: The only thing I can think of is that certain abstract facts are 'determined' by other abtract facts, without being 'caused' by them. A useful word. |
17088 | Reducing one science to another is often said to be the perfect explanation [Ruben] |
Full Idea: The reduction of one science to another has often been taken as paradigmatic of explanation. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5) | |
A reaction: It seems fairly obvious that the total reduction of chemistry to physics would involve the elimination of all the current concepts of chemistry. Could this possibly enhance our understanding of chemistry? I would have thought not. |
17089 | Facts explain facts, but only if they are conceptualised or named appropriately [Ruben] |
Full Idea: Facts explain facts only when the features and the individuals the facts are about are appropriately conceptualized or named. | |
From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5) | |
A reaction: He has a nice example that 'Cicero's speeches stop in 43 BCE' isn't explained by 'Tully died then', if you don't know that Cicero was Tully. Ruben is not defending pragmatic explanation, but to this extent he must be right. |
5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: In the seventeenth century the dominant idea that causation is collisionlike made mental causation almost impossible to envision. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.136) | |
A reaction: Interesting. This makes Descartes' interaction theory look rather bold, and Leibniz's and Malebranche's rejection of it understandable. Personally I still think of causation as collisionlike, except that the collisions are of very very tiny objects. |
5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: It is easy to explain why certain brain events are uniquely experienced by you subjectively: only you are properly hooked up to your own nervous system to have your own experiences. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 87) | |
A reaction: This is in reply to Nagel's oft quoted claim that mind can only be understood as "what it is like to be" that mind. I agree with Flanagan, and it is nice illustration of how philosophers can confuse themselves with high-sounding questions. |
5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: We only have a sense of our self as continuous, but not as exactly the same. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.178) | |
A reaction: Russell said this too, and it seems to me to be right. Personal identity is far too imprecise for me to assert that I remember my ten-year-old self as being identical to me now. Only physical objects like teddy bears can pass that test. |
5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The self is an abstraction from the story of a person's life that isolates and magnifies the experiences, traits and aspirations that are assigned importance. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.240) | |
A reaction: Personally I am inclined to see personal identity as the central controller of brain activity, the aspect of the biological machine which keeps all the mental events focused on what matters, which is health, safety and happiness. |
5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: It is a bad mistake to think we are born with a self; the self develops, and acquiring it requires living in the world. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.260) | |
A reaction: I think this is wrong. He is mistaking a complex cultural concept of the self as the subject for autobiography etc. for the basic biological self which even small animals must have if their brains are to serve any useful purpose in their lives. |
5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: According to Buddhism, the idea of a permanent, constant self is an illusion, and a morally dangerous one. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.161) | |
A reaction: We are familiar with the idea that it might be an illusion, but I am unconvinced by 'morally dangerous'. If you drop both free will and personal identity, I can't see any sort of focus for moral life left, but I am willing to be convinced. |
5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The standard view of free will is that I have something like complete control over what I do. A stronger view (not widely held) is that I also have complete control over what I think and what I feel. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 60n) | |
A reaction: To claim free control of feelings looks optimistic, but it does look as if we can decide to think about something, such as a philosophical problem. Deciding what to say comes somewhere between thought and action. |
5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Free will is said to give us self-control, self-expression, individuality, reasons-sensitivity, rational deliberation, rational accountability, moral accountability, the capacity to do otherwise, unpredictability, and political freedom. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.104) | |
A reaction: Nice list. His obvious challenge is to either say we can live happily without some of these things, or else show how we can have them without 'free will'. Personally I agree with Flanagan that we meet the challenge. |
5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Most people believe we have free will, and that this consists in the ability to circumvent natural law. The trouble is that the only device ever philosophically invented that can do this sort of job is an incorporeal soul or mind. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], Pref) | |
A reaction: I think this is exactly right. We currently have a western world full of people who have rejected dualism, but still cling on to free will, because they think morality depends on it. I think morality depends on personal identity, but not on free will. |
5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: It is unimaginable to me that, despite the feeling that we control what we do, such a strong conception of ourselves as unmoved movers would have been added to our self-image unless we had first conceived of God along these lines. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.107) | |
A reaction: I think this is right, though there are signs in fifth century Greece of contradictory evidence. The 'unmoved mover' seems unformulated before Plato's 'Laws' (idea 1423), but there is an implied belief in free will a hundred years earlier. |
5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: I would say that that my consciousness doesn't seem either physical or non-physical, ..but the belief that the mind is non-physical partly took hold because that fits well with thinking of human agents as free. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.102) | |
A reaction: I think this is right. I personally think there is no such thing as free will, and that belief in it has been the single greatest delusion amongst philosophers (and others) for the last two thousand years. Dualism has now gone, and free will is next. |
5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Behaviourism was notorious in its heyday for having nothing to say about mental causation. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.141) | |
A reaction: This is a bit unfair, as Ryle (idea 2622, following Spinoza, 4862) was one of the first to point out the paradox of 'double causation'. You have to be a mentalist to worry about mental causation, and eliminativists aren't bothered. |
5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Although everyone thinks cars and bodies obey the principles of causation, no one thinks it a deficiency that we don't know strict laws of automechanics or anatomy. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 65) | |
A reaction: This attacks Davidson's claim that there are no strict psycho-physical laws, and I agree with Flanagan. Huge dreams of free will and human dignity are being pinned on the flimsy point that we have no strict laws here. But brains are very complicated. |
5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: One may be committed to the truth of physicalism without being committed to the claim that the essence of an experience is captured fully by a description of its neural realiser. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 90) | |
A reaction: This is a reply to the Leibniz Mill question (idea 2109) about what is missing from a materialist view. Flanagan's point is that just as the essence of a panorama is the view from the hill, so the essence of consciousness requires you to be that brain. |
5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: One can question the idea that emotions are non-rational, fickle and flighty; on the contrary, emotions normally seem to be very apt. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 16) | |
A reaction: This is the modern view of emotion which is emerging from neuroscience, which is greatly superior to traditional views, apart from Aristotle, who felt that wisdom and virtue arose precisely when emotions were apt for the situation. |
5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: There are two main pictures of the good person: there is the 'good character', and there is the 'principled actor'. ..The first picture is non-intellectualist, and the second is intellectualist. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.145) | |
A reaction: The second ideal elevates the principle itself above the actor who carries it out. Presumably consistency is a virtue, so a good character will at least pay some attention to principles. A good magistrate comes out the same in both views. |
5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.301n) | |
A reaction: I take cognitivism to be (strictly) the view that morals are knowable in principle. Our intellects might not be up to the task (and so we might have to ask the gods what is right). There is also the possibility that morals might be known by intuition. |
5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: Ethics is the normative science that studies the objective conditions that lead to flourishing of persons. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p. 17) | |
A reaction: This is a nice slogan for the virtue theory account of the nature of ethics. I think it is the view with which I agree. I am intrigued that he has smuggled the word 'science' in, which is a nice challenge to conventional views of science. |
5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of a cycle of rebirths and reincarnations that are normally required before one achieve nirvana was only proposed in the eighth century CE, and then spread like wildfire among Hindus and, to a lesser extent, among Buddhists. | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.166n) | |
A reaction: Intriguing. Plato had proposed it in the fourth century BCE. Presumably Hindus had always been dualists, and then suddenly saw and exciting possibility that followed from it. The doctrine strikes me as (to put it mildly) implausible. |
5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |
Full Idea: The idea of the soul could be easily trashed if science does not countenance essences, but science does countenance essences in the form of what are known as 'natural kinds' (such as water, salt and gold). | |
From: Owen Flanagan (The Problem of the Soul [2002], p.181) | |
A reaction: The existence of any essences at all does indeed make the existence of a soul naturally possible, but scientific natural kinds are usually postulated on a basis of chemical stability. Animals, for example, are no longer usually classified that way. |