3 ideas
| 19398 | Minds are best explained by their ends, and bodies by efficient causes [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Whatever concerns reasonable substances (the minds of men) is more naturally explained by the consideration of ends, whereas other substances (bodies) are better explained by efficient causes. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Geometrical Method and Metaphysics [1712], p.89) | |
| A reaction: That is, I take it, that the type of causal explanation considered most appropriate is the one that leads to the greatest understanding. So there is no absolute or correct answer as to which type of causation is the more important. |
| 3460 | Superactors and superspartans count against behaviourism [Putnam, by Searle] |
| Full Idea: Putnam proposed the superactor/superspartan objection to behaviourism. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (Brains and Behaviour [1963]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 2.II | |
| A reaction: This is a beautiful compression of the obvious counterexamples, which are behaviour-wth-no-experience, and experience-with-no-behaviour. Presumably, though, Spartans are disposed to go 'aagh!' when they get home, and there are no 'super' actors. |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |