40 ideas
| 6504 | For physicalists, the only relations are spatial, temporal and causal [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Spatial, temporal and causal relations are the only respectable candidates for relations for a physicalist. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be true, and is an absolutely crucial principle upon which any respectable physicalist account of the world must be built. It means that physicalists must attempt to explain all mental events in causal terms. |
| 6520 | If reality just has relational properties, what are its substantial ontological features? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Some thinkers claim the physical world consists just of relational properties - generally of active powers or fields; ..but an ontology of mutual influences is not an ontology at all unless the possessors of the influence have more substantial features. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: I think this idea is one of the keys to wisdom. It is the same problem with functional explanations - you are left asking WHY this thing can have this particular function. Without the buck stopping at essences you are chasing your explanatory tail. |
| 8431 | Problems with Goodman's view of counterfactuals led to a radical approach from Stalnaker and Lewis [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: In reaction to two classic difficulties in Goodman's treatment of counterfactuals - the contenability problem and the explication of law - a radically different approach was instigated by Stalnaker (1968) and has been developed by Lewis. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Lewis's Programme [1987], p208) | |
| A reaction: [I record this for study purposes] |
| 6485 | When a red object is viewed, the air in between does not become red [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: When the form of red passes from an object to the eye, the air in between does not become red. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a crucial and basic fact which must be faced by any philosopher offering a theory of perception. I would have thought it instantly eliminated any sort of direct or naïve realism. The quale of red is created by my brain. |
| 6521 | Representative realists believe that laws of phenomena will apply to the physical world [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: One thing which is meant by saying that the phenomenal world represents or resembles the transcendental physical world is that the scientific laws devised to apply to the former, if correct, also apply (at least approximately) to the latter. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: This is not, of course, an argument, or a claim which can be easily substantiated, but it does seem to be a nice statement of a central article of faith for representative realists. The laws of the phenomenal world are the only ones we are going to get. |
| 6509 | Representative realists believe some properties of sense-data are shared by the objects themselves [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: A representative realist believes that at least some of the properties that are ostensively demonstrable in virtue of being exemplified in sense-data are of the same kind as some of those exemplified in physical objects. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to pin down exactly what is being claimed here. Locke's primary qualities will obviously qualify, but could properties be 'exemplified' in sense-data without them actually being the same as those of the objects? |
| 6522 | Phenomenalism can be theistic (Berkeley), or sceptical (Hume), or analytic (20th century) [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: It is useful to identify three kinds of phenomenalism: theistic, sceptical and analytic; the first is represented by Berkeley, the second by Hume, and the third by most twentieth-century phenomenalists. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.4) | |
| A reaction: In Britain the third group is usually represented by A.J.Ayer. My simple objection to all phenomenalists is that they are intellectual cowards because they won't venture to give an explanation of the phenomena which confront them. |
| 6502 | Can we reduce perception to acquisition of information, which is reduced to causation or disposition? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Many modern physicalists first analyse perception as no more than the acquisition of beliefs or information through the senses, and then analyse belief and the possession of information in causal or dispositional terms. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.1) | |
| A reaction: (He mentions Armstrong, Dretske and Pitcher). A reduction to dispositions implies behaviourism. This all sounds more like an eliminativist strategy than a reductive one. I would start by saying that perception is only information after interpretation. |
| 6513 | Would someone who recovered their sight recognise felt shapes just by looking? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Molyneux's Problem is whether someone who was born blind and acquired sight would be able to recognise, on sight, which shapes were which; that is, would they see which shape was the one that felt so-and-so? | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VIII.7) | |
| A reaction: (Molyneux wrote a letter to John Locke about this). It is a good question, and much discussed in modern times. My estimation is that the person would recognise the shapes. We are partly synaesthetic, and see sharpness as well as feeling it. |
| 6512 | Secondary qualities have one sensory mode, but primary qualities can have more [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Primary qualities and secondary qualities are often distinguished on the grounds that secondaries are restricted to one sensory modality, but primaries can appear in more. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VIII.7) | |
| A reaction: This distinction seems to me to be accurate and important. It is not just that the two types are phenomenally different - it is that the best explanation is that the secondaries depend on their one sense, but the primaries are independent. |
| 6497 | We say objects possess no intrinsic secondary qualities because physicists don't need them [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The idea that objects do not possess secondary qualities intrinsically rests on the thought that they do not figure in the physicist's account of the world; ..as they are causally idle, no purpose is served by attributing them to objects. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], III.1) | |
| A reaction: On the whole I agree with this, but colours (for example) are not causally idle, as they seem to affect the behaviour of insects. They are properties which can only have a causal effect if there is a brain in their vicinity. Physicists ignore brains. |
| 6494 | If objects are not coloured, and neither are sense-contents, we are left saying that nothing is coloured [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: If there are good reasons for thinking that physical objects are not literally coloured, and one also refuses to attribute them to sense-contents, then one will have the bizarre theory (which has been recently adopted) that nothing is actually coloured. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that objects are not literally coloured, that the air in between does not become coloured, and that my brain doesn't turn a funny colour, so that only leaves colour as an 'interior' feature of certain brain states. That's how it is. |
| 6499 | Shape can be experienced in different ways, but colour and sound only one way [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Shape can be directly experienced by either touch or sight, which are subjectively different; but colour and sound can be directly experienced only through experiences which are subjectively like sight and hearing. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], III.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a key argument in support of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. It seems to me that the distinction may be challenged and questioned, but to deny it completely (as Berkeley and Hume do) is absurd. |
| 6500 | If secondary qualities match senses, would new senses create new qualities? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: As secondary qualities are tailored to match senses, a proliferation of senses would lead to a proliferation of secondary qualities. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], III.1) | |
| A reaction: One might reply that if we experienced, say, magnetism, we would just be discerning a new fine grained primary quality, not adding something new to the ontological stock of properties in the world. It is a matter of HOW we experience the magnetism. |
| 6484 | Most moderate empiricists adopt Locke's representative theory of perception [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The representative theory of perception is found in Locke, and is adopted by most moderate empiricists. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This is, I think, my own position. Anything less than fairly robust realism strikes me as being a bit mad (despite Berkeley's endless assertions that he is preaching common sense), and direct realism seems obviously false. |
| 6508 | Sense-data leads to either representative realism or phenomenalism or idealism [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The sense-datum theorist is either a representative realist or a phenomenalist (with which we can classify idealism for present purposes). | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: The only alternative to these two positions seems to be some sort of direct realism. I class myself as a representative realist, as this just seems (after a very little thought about colour blindness) to be common sense. I'm open to persuasion. |
| 6480 | Sense-data do not have any intrinsic intentionality [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: I understand sense-data as having no intrinsic intentionality; that is, though it may suggest, by habit, things beyond it, in itself it possesses only sensible qualities which do not refer beyond themselves. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, as the whole point of proposing sense-data was as something neutral between realism and anti-realism |
| 6482 | For idealists and phenomenalists sense-data are in objects; representative realists say they resemble objects [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: For idealists and phenomenalists sense-data are part of physical objects, for objects consist only of actual or actual and possible sense-data; representative realists say they just have an abstract and structural resemblance to objects. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: He puts Berkeley, Hume and Mill in the first group, and Locke in the second. Russell belongs in the second. The very fact that there can be two such different theories about the location of sense-data rather discredits the whole idea. |
| 6505 | Sense-data are rejected because they are a veil between us and reality, leading to scepticism [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Resistance to the sense-datum theory is inspired mainly by the fear that such data constitute a veil of perception which stands between the observer and the external world, threatening scepticism, or even solipsism. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.1) | |
| A reaction: It is very intellectually dishonest to reject any theory because it leads to scepticism or relativism. This is a common failing among quite good professional philosophers. See Idea 241. |
| 6506 | 'Sense redly' sounds peculiar, but 'senses redly-squarely tablely' sounds far worse [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: 'Sense redly' sounds peculiar, but 'senses redly-squarely' or 'red-squarely' or 'senses redly-squarely-tablely' and other variants sound far worse. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a comment on the adverbial theory, which is meant to replace representative theories based on sense-data. The problem is not that it sounds weird; it is that while plain red can be a mode of perception, being a table obviously can't. |
| 6507 | Adverbialism sees the contents of sense-experience as modes, not objects [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The defining claim of adverbialism is that the contents of sense-experience are modes, not objects, of sensory activity. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems quite a good account of simple 'modes' like colour, but not so good when you instantly perceive a house. It never seems wholly satisfactory to sidestep the question of 'what are you perceiving when you perceive red or square?' |
| 6511 | If there are only 'modes' of sensing, then an object can no more be red or square than it can be proud or lazy. [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: If only modes of sensing are ostensively available, ..then it is a category mistake to see any resemblance between what is available and properties of bodies; one could as sensibly say that a physical body is proud or lazy as that it is red or square. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], VII.5) | |
| A reaction: This is an objection to the 'adverbial' theory of perception. It looks to me like a devastating objection, if the theory is meant to cover primary qualities as well as secondary. Red could be a mode of perception, but not square, surely? |
| 6515 | An explanation presupposes something that is improbable unless it is explained [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Any search for an explanation presupposes that there is something in need of an explanation - that is, something which is improbable unless explained. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: Elementary enough, but it underlines the human perspective of all explanations. I may need an explanation of baseball, where you don't. |
| 6517 | If all possibilities are equal, order seems (a priori) to need an explanation - or does it? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: The fact that order requires an explanation seems to be an a priori principle; ..we assume all possibilities are equally likely, and so no striking regularities should emerge; the sceptic replies that a highly ordered sequence is as likely as any other. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: An independent notion of 'order' is required. If I write down '14356', and then throw 1 4 3 5 6 on a die, the match is the order; instrinsically 14356 is nothing special. If you threw the die a million times, a run of six sixes seems quite likely. |
| 4608 | Minds are hard-wired, or trial-and-error, or experimental, or full self-aware [Dennett, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: Dennett identifies a hierarchy of minds running from 'Darwinian' (hard-wired solutions to problems), to 'Skinnerian' (trial-and-error), to 'Popperian' (anticipating possible experience), to 'Gregorian' (self-conscious representation, probably linguistic). | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996]) by John Heil - Philosophy of Mind Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. The concept of an experiment seems a major step (assessing reality against an internal map), and the ability to think about one's own thoughts certainly strikes me as the mark of a top level mind. Maybe that is the importance of language. |
| 4880 | Sentience comes in grades from robotic to super-human; we only draw a line for moral reasons [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: 'Sentience' comes in every imaginable grade or intensity, from the simplest and most 'robotic', to the most exquisitely sensitive, hyper-reactive 'human'. We have to draw a line for moral policy, but it is unlikely we will ever discover a threshold. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the only plausible view, if you take the theory of evolution seriously. We can even observe low-grade marginal sentience in our own minds, and then shoot up the scale when we focus our minds properly on an object. |
| 6481 | If intentional states are intrinsically about other things, what are their own properties? [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Intentional states are mysterious things; if they are intrinsically about other things, what properties, if any, do they possess intrinsically? | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question, which I suspect to be right at the heart of the tendency towards externalist accounts of the mind. Since you can only talk about the contents of the thoughts, you can't put forward a decent internalist account of what is going on. |
| 4873 | What is it like to notice an uncomfortable position when you are asleep? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: What is it like to notice, while sound asleep, that your left arm has become twisted into a position in which it is putting undue strain on your left shoulder? Like nothing. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A nice question, and all part of Dennett's accurate campaign to show that consciousness is not an all-or-nothing thing. As when we are barely aware of driving, innumerable things happen in the shadowy corners of thought. |
| 4881 | Being a person must involve having second-order beliefs and desires (about beliefs and desires) [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: An important step towards becoming a person is the step up from a first-order intentional system to a second-order system (which has beliefs and desires about beliefs and desires). | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Call it 'meta-thought'. I agree. Dennett thinks language is crucial to this, but the hallmark of intelligence and full-blown personhood is meta- and meta-meta-thought. Maybe the development of irony is a step up the evolutionary scale. Sarcasm is GOOD. |
| 4875 | We descend from robots, and our intentionality is composed of billions of crude intentional systems [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: We are descended from robots, and composed of robots, and all the intentionality we enjoy is derived from the more fundamental intentionality of billions of crude intentional systems. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A more grand view of intentionality (such as Searle's) seems more attractive than this, but the crucial fact about Dennett is that he takes the implications of evolution much more seriously than other philosophers. He's probably right. |
| 6503 | Physicalism cannot allow internal intentional objects, as brain states can't be 'about' anything [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: It is generally conceded by reductive physicalists that a state of the brain cannot be intrinsically about anything, for intentionality is not an intrinsic property of anything, so there can be no internal objects for a physicalist. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], V.4) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps it is best to say that 'aboutness' is not a property of physics. We may say that a brain state 'represents' something, because the something caused the brain state, but representations have to be recognised |
| 4879 | There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: There is no more fear or anger in adrenaline than there is silliness in a bottle of whiskey. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Not exactly an argument, but a nice rhetorical point against absurd claims about identity and reduction and elimination. We may say that there is no fear without adrenaline, and no adrenaline in a live brain without fear. |
| 4876 | Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps there is a minimum speed for a mind, rather like the minimum escape velocity required to overcome gravity and leave the planet. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Dennett rejects this speculation, but he didn't stop to imagine what it would be LIKE if your brain slowed down, and he never considers Edelman's view that mind is a process. Put the two together… |
| 4878 | The materials for a mind only matter because of speed, and a need for transducers and effectors [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I think there are only two good reasons why, when you make a mind, the materials matter: speed, and the ubiquity of transducers and effectors throughout the nervous system. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds roughly right, because it gives you something between multiple realisability (minds made of cans and string), and type-type identity (minds ARE a particular material). Call it 'biological functionalism'? |
| 4874 | The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The ancestor and chief rival of the language-of-thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas - that thoughts are about what they are about because they resemble their objects. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: When you place them side by side, neither seems quite right. How can a mental state resemble an object, and how can an inner language inherently capture the features of an object? Maybe we lack the words for the correct theory. |
| 4882 | Concepts are things we (unlike dogs) can think about, because we have language [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: A dog cannot consider its concepts. Concepts are not things in a dog's world in the way that cats are. Concepts are things in our world, because we have language. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Dogs must have concepts, though, or much of their behaviour (like desperation to go for a walk, or to eat) is baffling. This is as good a proposal as I have ever encountered for the value of language. Meta-thought is a huge evolutionary advantage. |
| 4872 | Most people see an abortion differently if the foetus lacks a brain [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If a fetus that is being considered for abortion is known to be anencephalic (lacking a brain), this dramatically changes the issue for most people, though not for all. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A very effective point, as it is hard to see what grounds could be given for not aborting in this case. But the brain then clearly becomes the focus of why abortion is often rejected by many people. |
| 6519 | Locke's solidity is not matter, because that is impenetrability and hardness combined [Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Notoriously, Locke's filler for Descartes's geometrical matter, solidity, will not do, for that quality collapses on examination into a composite of the dispositional-cum-relational propery of impenetrability, and the secondary quality of hardness. | |
| From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought the problem was that 'matter is solidity' turns out on analysis to be a tautology. We have a handful of nearly synonymous words for matter and our experiences of it, but they boil down to some 'given' thing for which we lack words. |
| 8432 | Analyse counterfactuals using causation, not the other way around [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: In my view, counterfactual conditionals are analysed in terms of causation. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Lewis's Programme [1987], p.208) | |
| A reaction: This immediately sounds more plausible to me. Counterfactual claims are rather human, whereas causation (if we accept it) seems a feature of nature. The key question is whether some sort of 'dependency' is a feature of counterfactuals. |
| 4877 | Maybe plants are very slow (and sentient) animals, overlooked because we are faster? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Might plants just be 'very slow animals', enjoying sentience that has been overlooked by us because of our human timescale chauvinism? | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Delightful thought, arising from pondering the significance of the speed of operation of the brain. I think it is false, because I think high speed is essential to mind, and Dennett seems not to. |