Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority', 'Putnam's Paradox' and 'The Extended Mind'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

17 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
9331 How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich]
     Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition?
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2)
     A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't?
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 2. Isomorphisms
14212 A consistent theory just needs one model; isomorphic versions will do too, and large domains provide those [Lewis]
     Full Idea: A consistent theory is, by definition, one satisfied by some model; an isomorphic image of a model satisfies the same theories as the original model; to provide the making of an isomorphic image of any given model, a domain need only be large enough.
     From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Why Model')
     A reaction: This is laying out the ground for Putnam's model theory argument in favour of anti-realism. If you are chasing the one true model of reality, then formal model theory doesn't seem to offer much encouragement.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
14213 Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Anti-realists say the only world is imaginary, or only has the parts or classes or relations we divide it into, or doubt that reference to the world is possible, or doubt that our interpretations can achieve truth.
     From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Why Anti-R')
     A reaction: [compression of a paragraph on anti-realism] Lewis is a thoroughgoing realist. A nice example of the rhetorical device of ridiculing an opponent by suggesting that they don't even know what they themselves believe.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / b. Sums of parts
14210 A gerrymandered mereological sum can be a mess, but still have natural joints [Lewis]
     Full Idea: The mereological sum of the coffee in my cup, the ink in this sentence, a nearby sparrow, and my left shoe is a miscellaneous mess of an object, yet its boundaries are by no means unrelated to the joints of nature.
     From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'What Might')
     A reaction: In that case they do, but if there are no atoms at the root of physics then presumably their could also be thoroughly jointless assemblages, involving probability distributions etc. Even random scattered atoms seem rather short of joints.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
19743 A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: Beliefs are partly constituted by features of the environment. ....a notebook plays for one person the same role that memory plays for another. ...The information is reliably there, available to consciousness, and to guide action, just as belief is.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §4)
     A reaction: This is the modern externalist approach to beliefs (along with broad content and external cognition systems). Not quite what we used to mean by beliefs, but we'll get used to it. I believe Plato wrote what it said in his books. Is memory just a role?
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori
9333 A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich]
     Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8)
     A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 6. A Priori from Reason
9342 Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich]
     Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12)
     A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
9332 Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich]
     Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8)
     A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts
9341 Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich]
     Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12)
     A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge.
9334 If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich]
     Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9)
     A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 10. A Priori as Subjective
9339 A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich]
     Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11)
     A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
6176 A mechanism can count as 'cognitive' whether it is in the brain or outside it [Clark/Chalmers, by Rowlands]
     Full Idea: If the operation of a brain implant inside the brain is a cognitive operation, why should it not count as a cognitive operation when it is outside the brain? There are many mechanisms which would count as cognitive if they were inside the subject.
     From: report of A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.9
     A reaction: This argues for externalism of the vehicle of thought, rather than its content. The idea is that there is no significant difference between remembering a phone number and writing it on a bit of paper. I find it hard to disagree.
19741 If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognising as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §2)
     A reaction: In some sense they are obviously right that our cognitive activities spill out into books, calculators, record-keeping. It seems more like an invitation to shift the meaning of the word 'mind', than a proof that we have got it wrong.
19742 Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: Many identify the cognitive with the conscious, and it seems far from plausible that consciousness extends outside the head in these cases. But not every cognitive process, at least on standard usage, is a conscious process.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §3)
     A reaction: This gives you two sorts of externalism about mind to consider. No, three, if you say there is extended conceptual content, then extended cognition processes, then extended consciousness. Depends what you mean by 'consciousness'.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
19744 If a person relies on their notes, those notes are parted of the extended system which is the person [Clark/Chalmers]
     Full Idea: If Otto relies on his notebook, what this comes to is that Otto himself is best regarded as an extended system, a coupling of biological organism and external resources.
     From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §5)
     A reaction: You start to get giddy as you read this stuff. If two people constantly share a notebook, they begin to blend into one another. It inclines me towards a more 'animalist' view of the nature of a person or a self.
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
14215 Causal theories of reference make errors in reference easy [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Whatever happens in special cases, causal theories usually make it easy to be wrong about the thing we refer to.
     From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'What Is')
     A reaction: I suppose the point of this is that there are no checks and balances to keep reference in focus, but just a requirement to keep connected to an increasingly attenuated causal chain.
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / b. Reference by description
14209 Descriptive theories remain part of the theory of reference (with seven mild modifications) [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Description theories of reference are supposed to have been well and truly refuted. I think not: ..it is still tenable with my seven points, and part of the truth of reference [7: rigidity, egocentric, tokens, causal, imperfect, indeterminate, families].
     From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Glob Desc')
     A reaction: (The bit at the end refers to his seven points, on p.59). He calls his basic proposal 'causal descriptivism', incorporating his seven slight modifications of traditional descriptivism about reference.