Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority', 'The Concept of Mind' and 'Paradoxes: Form and Predication'

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19 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
Philosophy aims to become more disciplined about categories [Ryle]
     Full Idea: Philosophy is the replacement of category-habits by category-disciplines.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], Intro p.8), quoted by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.2
     A reaction: I rather like this. It fits the view the idea that metaphysics aims to give the structure of reality. If there are not reasonably uniform categories for things, then reality is indescribable. Improving our categories seems a thoroughly laudable aim.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
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 / G. Quantification / 6. Plural Quantification
Saying 'they can become a set' is a tautology, because reference to 'they' implies a collection [Cargile]
     Full Idea: If the rule is asserted 'Given any well-determined objects, they can be collected into a set by an application of the 'set of' operation', then on the usual account of 'they' this is a tautology. Collection comes automatically with this form of reference.
     From: James Cargile (Paradoxes: Form and Predication [1979], p.115), quoted by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For? Intro
     A reaction: Is this a problem? Given they are well-determined (presumably implying countable) there just is a set of them. That's what set theory is, I thought. Of course, the iterative view talks of 'constructing' the sets, but the construction looks unstoppable.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / e. Dispositions as potential
A dispositional property is not a state, but a liability to be in some state, given a condition [Ryle]
     Full Idea: To possess a dispositional property is not to be in a particular state;..it is to be bound or liable to be in a particular state, or undergo a particular change, when a particular condition is realized.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], II (7))
     A reaction: Whether this view is correct is the central question about dispositions. Ryle's view is tied in with Humean regularities and behaviourism about mind. The powers view, which I favour, says a disposition is a drawn bow, an actual state of power.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 7. Against Powers
No physical scientist now believes in an occult force-exerting agency [Ryle]
     Full Idea: The old error treating the term 'Force' as denoting an occult force-exerting agency has been given up in the physical sciences.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], V (1))
     A reaction: Since 1949 they seem to have made a revival, once they are divested of their religious connotations. The word 'agency' is the misleading bit. Even Leibniz's monads weren't actual agents - he always said that was 'an analogy'.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori
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
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
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
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.
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
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 / 3. Mental Causation
Can one movement have a mental and physical cause? [Ryle]
     Full Idea: The dogma of the Ghost in the Machine maintains that there exist both minds and bodies; that there are mechanical causes of corporeal movements, and mental causes of corporeal movements.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], I (3))
     A reaction: This nicely identifies the problem of double causation, which can be found in Spinoza (Idea 4862). The dualists have certainly got a problem here, but they can deny a conflict. The initiation of a hand movement is not mechanical at all.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Reporting on myself has the same problems as reporting on you [Ryle]
     Full Idea: My reports on myself are subject to the same kinds of defects as are my reports on you.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This may be true of memories or of motives, but it hardly seems to apply to being in pain, where you might be totally lying, where the worst I could do to myself is exaggerate. "You're fine; how am I?"
We cannot introspect states of anger or panic [Ryle]
     Full Idea: No one could introspectively scrutinize the state of panic or fury.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], Ch.6)
     A reaction: It depends what you mean by 'scrutinize'. No human being ever loses their temper or panics without a background thought of "Oh dear, I'm losing it - it would probably be better if I didn't" (or, as Aristotle might say, "I'm angry, and so I should be").
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
I cannot prepare myself for the next thought I am going to think [Ryle]
     Full Idea: One thing that I cannot prepare myself for is the next thought that I am going to think.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], VI (7))
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
Dualism is a category mistake [Ryle]
     Full Idea: The official theory of mind (as private, non-spatial, outside physical laws) I call 'the dogma of the Ghost in the Machine'. I hope to prove it entirely false, and show that it is one big mistake, namely a 'category mistake'.
     From: Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949], I (2))
     A reaction: This is the essence of Ryle's eliminitavist behaviourism. Personally I agree that the idea of a separate 'ghost' running the machine is utterly implausible, but it isn't a 'category mistake'. The mind clearly exists, but the confusion is about what it is.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Behaviour depends on desires as well as beliefs [Chalmers on Ryle]
     Full Idea: Another problem for Ryle (from Chisholm and Geach) is that no mental state could be defined by a single range of behavioural dispositions, independent of any other mental states. (Behaviour depends upon desires as well as beliefs).
     From: comment on Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949]) by David J.Chalmers - The Conscious Mind 1.1.2
     A reaction: The defence of behaviourism is to concede this point, but suggest that behavioural dispositions come in large groups of interdependent sets, some relating to beliefs, others relating to desires, and each group leads to a behaviour.
You can't explain mind as dispositions, if they aren't real [Benardete,JA on Ryle]
     Full Idea: Ryle is tough-minded to the point of incoherence when he combines a dispositional account of the mind with an anti-realist account of dispositions.
     From: comment on Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.22
     A reaction: A nice point, but it strikes me that Ryle was, by temperament at least, an eliminativist about the mind, so the objection would not bother him. Maybe a disposition and a property are the same thing?
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
How can behaviour be the cause of behaviour? [Chalmers on Ryle]
     Full Idea: A problem for Ryle is that mental states may cause behaviour, but if mental states are themselves behavioural or behavioural dispositions, as opposed to internal states, then it is hard to see how they could do the job.
     From: comment on Gilbert Ryle (The Concept of Mind [1949]) by David J.Chalmers - The Conscious Mind 1.1.2
     A reaction: I strongly approve of this, as an objection to any form of behaviourism or functionalism. If you identify something by its related behaviour, or its apparent function, this leaves the question 'WHY does it behave or function in this way?'