99 ideas
23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
17325 | Truth-maker theory can't cope with non-causal dependence [Liggins] |
Full Idea: My charge is that truth-maker theory cannot be integrated into an attractive general account of non-causal dependence. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6) | |
A reaction: [You'll have to read Liggins to see why] |
17318 | Truthmakers for existence is fine; otherwise maybe restrict it to synthetic truths? [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Many philosophers agree that true existential propositions have a truth-maker, but some go further, claiming that every true proposition has a truth-maker. More cautious theorists specify a class of truths, such as synthetic propositions. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed; Armstrong is the ambitious one, and Rodriguez-Pereyra proposes the synthetic propositions] Presumably synthetic propositions can make negative assertions, which are problematic for truth-makers. |
3137 | Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey] |
Full Idea: We designate token particulars with singular terms, such as: proper names, numerals, definite descriptions, demonstratives, pronouns or variables. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1.1) |
3143 | Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey] |
Full Idea: Physics is committed to arithmetic, which seems committed to abstract objects such as numbers, and its causal explanations seem to appeal to properties, such as mass and charge. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.3) |
17320 | Either p is true or not-p is true, so something is true, so something exists [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Either p or not-p. If p, then the proposition 'p' is true. If not p, then the proposition 'not p' is true. Either way, something is true. Thus something exists. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.3 n5) | |
A reaction: Liggins offers this dodgy argument as an objection to conceptual truths having truth-makers. |
17326 | The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates involves a set and a philosopher, not facts [Liggins] |
Full Idea: The dependence of {Socrates} on Socrates appears to involve a set and a philosopher, neither of which is a fact. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.6) | |
A reaction: He points out that defenders of facts as the basis of dependence could find a suitable factual paraphrase here. Socrates is just Socrates, but the singleton has to be understood in a particular way to generate the dependence. |
17327 | Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Non-causal dependence is at present only dimly understood. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.8) | |
A reaction: Not very helpful, you may be thinking, but it is always helpful to know where we have got to in the enquiry. |
17322 | Necessities supervene on everything, but don't depend on everything [Liggins] |
Full Idea: Necessities supervene upon everything, but they do not depend on everything. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure if merely existing together counts as sufficiently close to be 'supervenience'. If 2+2 necessitates 4, that hardly seems to 'supervene' on the Eiffel Tower. If so, how close must things be to qualify for supervenience? |
14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
3145 | The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law, the indiscernibility of identicals, is a truism which should not be confused with the more controversial identity of indiscernibles, which depends on the possibility of perfectly replicated universes. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.4) |
3172 | Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey] |
Full Idea: Two of the key claims of empiricism are that all knowledge must be justified on the basis of experience, and that all knowledge in fact originates in experience. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) |
3166 | Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey] |
Full Idea: Rats and monkeys exhibit 'latent learning' (learning just for fun) which is later beneficial. They learn with no consequences, and then can't learn when the good consequences are available. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.1.1) | |
A reaction: This looks like a bit of a setback for naturalised epistemology and cognitive science, if learning can't be brought within a stimulus-response framework. |
17324 | 'Because' can signal an inference rather than an explanation [Liggins] |
Full Idea: 'Because' can signal an inference rather than an explanation. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.5) | |
A reaction: Aristotle starts from words like 'why?', but it can be a deceptive approach to explanation. |
17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
17321 | Value, constitution and realisation are non-causal dependences that explain [Liggins] |
Full Idea: 'It is wrong because it produces pain for fun', and 'these constitute a table because they are arranged tablewise', and 'tea is poisonous because it contains arsenic' are clearly non-causal uses of 'because', and neither are they conceptual. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
A reaction: The general line seems to be that any form of determination will underwrite an explanation. He talks later of the 'wrongmaker' and 'poisonmaker' relationships to add to the 'truthmaker'. The table example is the 'object-maker' dependence relation. |
17323 | If explanations track dependence, then 'determinative' explanations seem to exist [Liggins] |
Full Idea: If explanation often tracks dependence, then we have a theoretical reason to expect such explanations to exist. Let us call such explanations 'determinative'. | |
From: David Liggins (Truth-makers and dependence [2012], 10.4) | |
A reaction: There seems to be an emerging understanding that this 'determination' relation is central to all of explanation - with causal explanations, for example, being a particular instance of it. I like it. These are real, not conventional, explanations. |
3232 | Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey] |
Full Idea: Abduction moves from some data to a 'best explanation'. It is not deduction because the data could be true but the conclusion false, and it is not induction because the conclusion may involve data not mentioned in the premises. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], p.322) |
3128 | It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey] |
Full Idea: It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2) |
3136 | The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey] |
Full Idea: There are three main views regarding the ontology of mental phenomena: reductionism, dualism and eliminativism. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1) | |
A reaction: It is precisely this picture which is rejected by Davidson and co, who want something called 'property dualism', with a unique relationship which is labelled 'supervenient'. Unfortunately there is no analogy for it. Not even beauty and a statue. |
3141 | Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey] |
Full Idea: Crick and Koch claim that visual consciousness is correlated with a 40Hz oscillation in layers five and six of the primary visual cortex. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.1) | |
A reaction: Not many people seem to have been enthused by their proposal. The target is the NCC (Neural Correlate of Consciousness), but we would only accept that location if the 'oscillations' seemed in some way special. |
3148 | Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey] |
Full Idea: The privacy that is a serious issue for the dualist is a peculiarly epistemic privacy that not even telepathy or brain fusions would seem to overcome. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.4) | |
A reaction: This is a key idea in the traditional defence of dualism. I'm inclined to think that we are faced with deep privacy not because the mind is so hidden, but because the observer is trapped in NOT being the thing observed. In that sense, rocks are private. |
3164 | Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey] |
Full Idea: There can seem to be no escape from the "intentional circle" - the use of one intentional idiom always seems to presuppose the use of another. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 3.3) | |
A reaction: The best explanation of this is Conceptual Dualism (Papineau: Thinking about Consciousness). We are locked into dualist concepts because of our long-term ignorance about the brain. |
3138 | Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey] |
Full Idea: The contents of thoughts, beliefs and desires seem quite distinct from qualia. Arithmetic has no particular feeling attached to it, and Freud showed that many propositional attitudes have no feeling at all, as they are unconscious. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1.2) | |
A reaction: I don't think we should rule out 'pre-conscious' qualia. The fact that advanced human mental capacities like arithmetic have thinned out their qualia doesn't count against qualia being essential to normal mental life. |
3142 | Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey] |
Full Idea: If we allow as a brute fact that certain mental states possess conscious qualitative content, there is still the problem of explaining why they possess one content rather than another (why does this stimulus look RED?). | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as the Really Hard Question. The Hard Question is merely 'why are creatures aware of their thoughts?' Personally I don't rule out finding a physical answer to the RHQ, and it is certainly not grounds for drifting into neo-dualism. |
3224 | If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey] |
Full Idea: If qualia are non-functionally defined objects, then their attachment to their role in my thought would seem to be metaphysically accidental. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.4.2) | |
A reaction: A rock at sea can cause a shipwreck without being defined as 'a shipwrecker'. It is, of course, tautological that if qualia have a 'role' in my thoughts, they must have causal powers, but 'function' is a much trickier concept. |
3227 | Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey] |
Full Idea: Qualitative experience is just a particular species of propositional attitude. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.6.1) | |
A reaction: This sounds very implausible. If I hear a loud and baffling noise, is a proposition instantly involved? When a subtle change of colour occurs in the sky at sunset, is that 'propositional'? Do slugs formulate propositions when they taste garlic? |
3226 | Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey] |
Full Idea: Phenomenal objects and properties are no more needed to explain the workings of our mind than are angels needed to explain the motion of the planets. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.6.1) | |
A reaction: The question would be whether 'phenomenal properties' contained unique information, which could therefore influence behaviour. It is also a matter of exactly what you are trying to explain. |
3229 | If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey] |
Full Idea: If colour can be modelled as a cone, with points mapped by hue, brightness and saturation, then a rotation could be isomorphic with the hues switched, so we may all experience different hues. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.7.1) | |
A reaction: from Levine |
3223 | Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey] |
Full Idea: It is tempting to think that if a system has concepts for nested intentionality and first-person reflection, it has all that's needed for self-consciousness. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.2.2) | |
A reaction: If there nothing more than nested intentionality in complex minds like ours, the top level of the nesting would still have a special status. And if the top level always seemed to stay the same while the lower levels changed, I'd probably call it the Self |
3162 | Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey] |
Full Idea: Experiments have shown (Nisbett and Wilson 1977) that people's introspective knowledge is a lot less reliable than they suppose. People are sensitive to but entirely unaware of many factors that influence their social behaviour. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 3.2.2) | |
A reaction: This type of observation rests on an overemphasis on the conscious mind. We are not conscious of liver events, or of deep buried brain events, both of which motivate us. We should only expect introspection to reveal what is fully conscious. |
3163 | Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey] |
Full Idea: The most dramatic phenomena undermining the absolute reliability of introspection are those of blindsight and "anosognosia" (unawareness of one's own brain damage). | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 3.2.2) | |
A reaction: It might depend on what you expected introspection to reveal. If you only expected it to tell you about your consciousness, it would be unreasonable to expect knowledge of blindsight information by introspection. |
3195 | If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey] |
Full Idea: If a computational account of reasoning processes could be given, then there is no need to settle the issue of "free will", as reason could get along without it. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.6) |
3196 | Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey] |
Full Idea: We don't need arguments to show that if there were free will then computational accounts of the mind would be inadequate; what is needed is good evidence that there actually exists such free will in the first place. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.6) |
3180 | Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey] |
Full Idea: Defining most mental states seems to requiring citing other mental states - but perhaps behaviourists can define them all simultaneously | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.3) | |
A reaction: This is an interesting strategy for trying to avoid the well known circularity of attempting to define mental states in behavioural terms. Behaviourism won't go away. |
3165 | Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey] |
Full Idea: There are three different views concerning behaviourism - the 'radical' view, which aims at eliminativism, the 'analytical' view, which is a reductionist enterprise, and the 'methodological' view, somewhere between the two. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4) | |
A reaction: The first appears to be ontological, the second about relationships between areas of our language, and the third epistemological. You could attempt language reduction because we can only know behaviour, because that's all there is. |
3167 | Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey] |
Full Idea: Animals exhibit 'spontaneous alteration' in their behaviour (e.g. varying the route to the food), or improvisation (finding short cuts instead of following training). They use mental maps, or dead reckoning, not just conditioned responses. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.1.4) | |
A reaction: If we can't even get a decent behaviourist account of animal behaviour, presumably the chances for humans look even less good. 'Black box' behaviourism, rather than the eliminativist version, might allow internal mechanisms to modify responses. |
3173 | How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey] |
Full Idea: Radical behaviourists say animals emit "similar" responses to "similar" reinforcements, but that is empty without specifying in what respect there is a similarity. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) | |
A reaction: The point is that when you try to specify the similarity you are (supposedly) forced to use mental language to make the distinctions, thus contradicting behaviourism. It is not, though, self-evidently impossible to give a behaviourist specification. |
3179 | Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey] |
Full Idea: The two main anti-behaviourist intuitions are that mind and behaviour only relate contingently, and that for much mental life (thinking, emotion) the resulting behaviour seems unimportant. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Attractive intuitions, but not unquestionable. Since no two states of mind are ever fully identical, we can never test whether the resulting behaviour arises contingently or necessarily. The second point underestimates the physicality of mental life. |
3186 | If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey] |
Full Idea: If many otherwise ordinary people turned out to have skulls which were empty or filled with oatmeal, would that mean that they didn't have minds? | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 7.1.4) | |
A reaction: That's a John Locke sort of question, implying that 'persons' are logically independent of their implementation. Personally I would search for a radio receiver, because oatmeal is implausible as a thinker. |
3127 | Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey] |
Full Idea: Neither dualism nor physicalism provides much serious explanation of any mental phenomena, or even much in the way of a program of research. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure if people who demand an "explanation of mental phenomena" are quite clear about what it is they want. God might just say "Mental phenomena are just brain events from the brain's point of view". |
3188 | Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey] |
Full Idea: So-called 'homuncular functionalism' (such as Freud's or Plato's internal struggles of the soul) needn't lead to an infinite regress if eventually the homunculi become so stupid they could be replaced by a machine. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 7.2.2) | |
A reaction: from Fodor |
3216 | Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey] |
Full Idea: The question for a computational-representation theory about the Chinese Room is: is what is happening inside the room functionally equivalent to what is happening inside a normal Chinese speaker? | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.2.1) | |
A reaction: Certainly the Room lacks morality ('how can I torture my sister?'). It won't spot connections between recent questions. It won't ask itself questions. It will take years to spot absurd questions. |
3220 | Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey] |
Full Idea: You should no more attribute understanding of Chinese to this one part of the system than you should ascribe the properties of the entire British Empire to Queen Victoria. This is the fallacy of division. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.2.3) | |
A reaction: This very nicely pinpoints what is wrong with the Chinese Room argument (nice analogy, too). If you carefully introspect what is involved when you 'understand' something, it is immensely complex, though it feels instant and simple. |
3206 | One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey] |
Full Idea: It is always possible to provide incompatible interpretations of formal theories, so that a computer could use the same program one day to play chess, the next to fight a war. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.3) | |
A reaction: This seems to present a huge gulf between human chess players (who 'understand' what they are doing) and machines, but I don't accept it. Giving the machine cameras and multi-level software would fix it. |
3140 | If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey] |
Full Idea: Reduction is not the same as elimination; if chemists reduce water to H2O, or biologists reduce life to a complex chemical process, they have not shown that they don't exist. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.2.1) | |
A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'elimination'. It is important to be clear whether you are eliminating something from life, or from strict philosophical ontology. Ontologists never mention mountains. |
3134 | Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey] |
Full Idea: There is clear evidence against eliminative materialism in the law-like correlations found among millions of answers in standardised school tests, for which it can give no explanation. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.3) | |
A reaction: Not very persuasive. If neural networks got involved in complex competitions with one another, you would expect them to evolve similar tactics. |
3200 | Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey] |
Full Idea: Connectionism is a way of capturing the holism of pattern recognition, as stressed by many critics of computational theories of mind. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
A reaction: I am drawn to the idea that arithmetic derives from pattern recognition, and the latter is basic to all minds (a kind of instant unthinking induction), so this seems to me a win for connectionism. |
3201 | Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey] |
Full Idea: Connectionism is better than other AI strategies at capturing the extraordinary swiftness of perception, and of degrading in a 'graceful' way. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
A reaction: A good theory had better capture the extraordinary swiftness of perception. Also the swiftness of recognition. Compare seeing a surprising old friend in a crowd, and recognising the person you are looking for. |
3202 | Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey] |
Full Idea: Connectionism offers promising accounts of irrational behaviour, such as people's bias towards positive instances, and their tendency to fall for the gamblers' fallacy. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
A reaction: That is strong support, because the chances of a computational robot having such tendencies is virtually nil, but all humans have the biases referred to (even philosophers). |
3199 | Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey] |
Full Idea: In connectionism, each node is given an activation level, and each branch a weight, according to possible degree of effect. This results in 'excitatory' and 'inhibitory' connections. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.8) | |
A reaction: Whether such a system could ever be 'conscious' is not the only interesting question. What could such a system do? Could it ever be good at philosophy? |
3150 | Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey] |
Full Idea: Eight properties of mind are problems for the identity theory: rationality, free will, spatiality, privacy, intentionality, essential mentality, subjective content, and the explanatory gap. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.7) | |
A reaction: The list could go on: poetry, creativity, love, normativity... Actually, these are problems for every theory. |
3129 | Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey] |
Full Idea: In physicalism the "ghost in the machine" is merely replaced by the "complexity" in it. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], Int.2) | |
A reaction: This is nonsense. No one thinks that mere complexity generates consciousness. The assumption is that we would begin to understand the mind only if we could somehow map the connections of the brain. |
3139 | Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey] |
Full Idea: Propositional attitudes divide into two broad types: neutral informational ones (belief, suspicion, imagining), and directional ones which motivate an agent (preference, desire, hate). | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 1.1.2) | |
A reaction: Since suspicions are motivating, and preferences are informational, this is not a very sharp distinction. An alternative would be to say that there is one type, and sometimes the will gets involved. |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
3171 | Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey] |
Full Idea: Ninety percent of most young children's utterances are grammatical. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.4) | |
A reaction: This is good evidence for some sort of innate element in the grammar of language. But the accurate grammar is not in a particular language. Good communication must be the driving force in all this. |
3174 | Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey] |
Full Idea: Grammatical sensitivity is in no way a physical property of the stimulus, and we can't imagine how to build a device which would produce grammatical structures in response to the environment. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) | |
A reaction: You could try to program it with a set of (say) Aristotelian categories, and mechanisms to sort the environment accordingly. It then has to query its database, in response to practical needs. A doddle. |
3213 | Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey] |
Full Idea: The language of thought need not only be confined to creatures which speak a natural language. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.1.1) | |
A reaction: I take it as axiomatic that our brains are no different in principles and fundamental mechanics from the lowliest of creatures. See Idea 7509. |
3170 | We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey] |
Full Idea: Very young children have been shown (Brown and Halon 1970) to be 'reinforced' not for their grammar but for the informational content of what they say. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.1) | |
A reaction: This is what you would expect. It doesn't follow that the grammar comes from innate mechanisms, because the pressure to get the information right could impose increasing accuracy in grammar. |
3215 | Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey] |
Full Idea: Processing of images and mental models seems to require, and therefore is unlikely to replace, computation and representation. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 10.1.2) | |
A reaction: A good point. If you are a fan of mental imagery, you still have to explain how we can hold an image, or recall it, or manipulate it. I always, I don't know why, wince at the thought of 'computations' among neurons. |
3194 | CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey] |
Full Idea: The computational/representational theory of thought has given a good account of deduction, but mechanical theories of induction, abduction and practical reason are needed in order to make a machine which could reason. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 8.5) | |
A reaction: This is the best analysis of rationality that I have found (four components: deduction, induction, abduction, practical reason). I can think of nothing to add, and certainly none of these should be omitted. |
3147 | Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey] |
Full Idea: Recent experiments (Shepard 1982) suggest people have imagistic representations they inspect when solving problems. In comparing two rotated images, the time for comparison varies with the angle of rotation. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.3) | |
A reaction: This doesn't prove that they are slowly rotating something. It may just be harder to make the leap to the new shape, when it is 'further away'. Picturing a 20-sided figure, we don't add sides one-by-one. |
3175 | Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey] |
Full Idea: To map things like food over time, animals must somehow represent events as having temporal properties, and somehow store those representations ready for later use. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) | |
A reaction: If the mechanisms for doing this are basic, then so is the ontology. Objects must be categorised, properties spotted, time-spans correlated etc. 'Represent' needs to be sharp to be useful. |
3207 | Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey] |
Full Idea: The oldest version of the externalist theory of meaning is the Fido/Fido theory, according to which the meaning of a representation is the object for which it stands. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2) | |
A reaction: Modern baptismal theories of reference seem to have taken us back to this, for distinct individuals such as Aristotle, or natural kinds like gold. What, though, does 'Fido' mean to me? Asthma! |
3176 | Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey] |
Full Idea: Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.3) |
3181 | A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey] |
Full Idea: You couldn't directly verify that the whole universe had stopped for one hour, but you might indirectly verify it (by prediction) - but then almost anything could be very indirectly verified. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 5.4) | |
A reaction: Does indirect verification include time travel? Or perfect knowledge of quantum theory, and total knowledge of quantum states. Laplace's Hypothesis. |
3204 | The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey] |
Full Idea: The view that the meaning of language of thought expressions is based on their conceptual role (derived from Wittgenstein's idea of meaning as use), is most plausible for the logical connectives like "and", but implausible for, say, "animal". | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.2) | |
A reaction: It was the logical connectives that got LW started on this track. If it doesn't work for 'animal' then does that mean we need two different theories? |
3205 | Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey] |
Full Idea: Semantic holism is a desperate measure. Belief content would be continually changed by new beliefs, evidence for a belief would change the target belief, and no two people would ever agree on concepts. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.1.2) | |
A reaction: It is far more plausible to say language is a bit on the holistic side. Total holism is mad. |
3209 | Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey] |
Full Idea: Causal histories may have some role to play in a theory of reference, but the chain of causation requires internal characterisations at each stage, and the original dubber had one thing rather than another in mind when dubbing. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2.1) | |
A reaction: The modern view of direct reference seems to prefer social context rather than a complete causal chain. |
3210 | If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey] |
Full Idea: What is special about meaning? If meaning and reference are just the result of causal chains, almost everything will mean something, since almost everything is reliably caused by something. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 9.2.2) | |
A reaction: It would be insane to think that all causal events produced meanings. It is probably better not to mention causation at all when discussing meaning. |
3149 | Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey] |
Full Idea: Referential Opacity says you cannot preserve truth if you substitute one referring term for another ('Oedipus desires Jocasta', 'Oedipus desires his mother'). | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.6) | |
A reaction: ….That is, in the context of expressing a propositional attitude. 'Oedipus desired his mother' was true. This idea requires some ignorance on the part of the person expressing the thought. |
3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
3169 | A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey] |
Full Idea: Bifurcated logical particles (either/or, if/then) are in principle beyond the power of any local chaining device to build sentences. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 4.2.1) | |
A reaction: True in natural languages, but not in formal ones? If P then either if-Q-then-R or if-S-then-T. Is that chaining? If rain, then if light then puddles, or if heavy then floods. Hm. |
7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
3221 | Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey] |
Full Idea: What gives people's desires certain moral importance is the fact that they have desires about those desires. | |
From: Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 11.1) | |
A reaction: from Frankfurt |
2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |