Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Really Hard Problem', 'Philosophical Theology' and 'Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers'

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13 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind

21833	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.

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind

21834	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.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value

21837	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

21830	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

21835	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.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism

21831	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.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 11. Capitalism

24071	Markets are transparent, with known prices and activity, and minimal profits [Davies,W]
	Full Idea: Markets are characterised by transparency. Prices are public, and all relevant activity is visible to everyone. And because of competition, profits are minimal, little more than a 'wage' for the seller.
	From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04)
	A reaction: This account, from Braudel, is to distinguish markets from capitalism.

24073	Capitalists use their exceptional power to impose their own rules, and make the state their ally [Davies,W]
	Full Idea: Capitalists exploit their unrivalled control over time and space in order to impose their rules on everyone else. …It triumphed late, only becoming dominant in the 19th century, when it had conscripted the state as its ally.
	From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04)
	A reaction: This so very much makes sense of the modern world. Nowadays capitalists are so wealthy that the state has largely become their pawn, rather than their ally. Populist leaders are their puppets (and are well rewarded).

24070	Economies have material, economic and capitalist layers [Davies,W]
	Full Idea: Braudel's economic history has three layers. At the bottom is material life of consumption, production, reproduction. Next is economic life of markets, of equals in exchange and competition. Top is capitalism, of opacity, monopoly, power, high profits.
	From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04)
	A reaction: The point Davies emphasises here is the sharp distinction between the market economy and capitalism.

24074	Capitalism must mainly rely either on the labour market, or on the financial markets [Davies,W]
	Full Idea: According to Marxists, the one market capitalism cannot do without is the labour market, which creates saleable things. Others, influenced by Keynes, emphasise financial markets, where pieces of paper change hands on expectation of their value.
	From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04)
	A reaction: Modern Britain fits the Keynesian account much better, given its low production, and very active (until recently) London financial market.

24072	Capitalism is the anti-market, with opacity, monopolies, powers, exceptional profits and wealth [Davies,W]
	Full Idea: Braudel sees capitalism as the 'anti-market': a world of opacity, monopoly, concentration of power and wealth, and the exceptional profits that can be achieved only by escaping the norms of 'economic life'.
	From: William Davies (Review of 'The Price is Wrong' by B.Christophers [2024], 24-04-04)
	A reaction: Given all the talk about the wonders of the 'free market' from right-wingers, this passage came as a revelation to me. Capitalists all dream of a monopoly, which is precisely the destruction of a market.

28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof

1451	Design is seen in the way ideas match the world, in the mechanisms of evolution, and in values [Tennant,FR, by PG]
	Full Idea: There is evidence for design in the correspondence of pure ideas to the world, in the origin and mechanism of evolution, and in the existence of moral values and beauty.
	From: report of F.R. Tennant (Philosophical Theology [1930], II.IV) by PG - Db (ideas)

29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism

21832	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.