Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Good and Evil', 'Making Mind Matter More' and 'Schopenhauer'

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6 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Fichte, Schelling and Hegel rejected transcendental idealism [Lewis,PB]
     Full Idea: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel were united in their opposition to Kant's Transcendental Idealism.
     From: Peter B. Lewis (Schopenhauer [2012], 3)
     A reaction: That is, they preferred genuine idealism, to the mere idealist attitude Kant felt that we are forced to adopt.
Fichte, Hegel and Schelling developed versions of Absolute Idealism [Lewis,PB]
     Full Idea: At the University of Jena, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling critically developed aspects of Kant's philosophy, each in his own way, thereby giving rise to the movement known as Absolute Idealism, see reality as universal God-like self-consciousness.
     From: Peter B. Lewis (Schopenhauer [2012], 2)
     A reaction: Is asking how anyone can possibly have believed such a bizarre and ridiculous idea a) uneducated, b) stupid, c) unimaginative, or d) very sensible? It sounds awfully like Spinoza's concept of God. Also Anaxagoras.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 6. Epiphenomenalism
Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor]
     Full Idea: The avoidance of epiphenomenalism requires making it plausible that intentional properties can meet sufficient conditions for causal responsibility.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.154)
     A reaction: A wordy way of saying we either have epiphenomenalism, or the mind had better do something - and a good theory will show how. The biggest problem of the mind may not be Chalmer's Hard Question (qualia), but how thought-contents cause things.
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor]
     Full Idea: I argue that (contrary to the doctrine called "anomalous monism") there is no good reason to doubt that there are intentional causal laws.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.151)
     A reaction: I certainly can't see a good argument, in Davidson or anywhere else, to demonstrate their impossibility. Give the complexity of the brain, they would be like the 'laws' for weather or geology.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor]
     Full Idea: If one of your reasons for doubting that believing-that-P is a physical property is that believing is multiply realizable, then you have the same reason for doubting that being an airfoil (or a mountain) counts as a physical property.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.153)
     A reaction: This merely points out that functionalism is not incompatible with physicalism, which must be right.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
     Full Idea: Geach puts 'good' in the class of attributive adjectives, such as 'large' and 'small', contrasting such adjectives with 'predicative' adjectives such as 'red'.
     From: report of Peter Geach (Good and Evil [1956]) by Philippa Foot - Natural Goodness Intro
     A reaction: [In Analysis 17, and 'Theories of Ethics' ed Foot] Thus any object can simply be red, but something can only be large or small 'for a rat' or 'for a car'. Hence nothing is just good, but always a good so-and-so. This is Aristotelian, and Foot loves it.