70 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. |
12585 | Most people can't even define a chair [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Ordinary speakers are notoriously unsuccessful if asked to offer an explicit definition of the concept 'chair'. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.1) |
3005 | 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If the concept 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from the concept 'Oedipus's mother', that's all right because the two concepts are connected with different properties. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 84) |
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] |
7014 | A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor] |
Full Idea: 'Is a particle and my coin is heads' and 'is a particle and my coin is tails' are perfectly well defined predicates and they pick out perfectly well defined (relational) properties of physical particles. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: (Somewhat paraphrased). This is a very nice offering for the case that all predicates are properties, and hence that 'properties' is an entirely conventional category. It strikes me as self-evident that Fodor is not picking out 'natural' properties. |
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 |
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? |
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 |
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 |
3008 | Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If I had to design homo sapiens, I would have made commonsense knowledge of homo sapiens psychology innate; that way nobody would have to spend time learning it. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.132) |
2990 | Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Contrary to commonsense, it looks as though much of what is in the mind is unlearned. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 15) |
3009 | Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor] |
Full Idea: God gave the male stickleback the idea that whatever is red is a rival. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.133) |
12581 | Perceptual concepts causally influence the content of our experiences [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Once a thinker has acquired a perceptually individuated concept, his possession of that concept can causally influence what contents his experiences possess. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Like having 35 different words for 'snow', I suppose. I'm never convinced by such claims. Having the concepts may well influence what you look at or listen to, but I don't see the deliverances of the senses being changed by the concepts. |
12579 | Perception has proto-propositions, between immediate experience and concepts [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Perceptual experience has a second layer of nonconceptual representational content, distinct from immediate 'scenarios' and from conceptual contents. These additional contents I call 'protopropositions', containing an individual and a property/relation. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3) | |
A reaction: When philosophers start writing this sort of thing, I want to turn to neuroscience and psychology. I suppose the philosopher's justification for this sort of speculation is epistemological, but I see no good coming of it. |
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] |
2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
Full Idea: In the Representation Theory of Mind, programs (the 'laws of thought') may be explicitly represented, but data structures (the 'contents of thought') have to be. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 25) | |
A reaction: Presumably this is because content is where mental events actually meet up with the reality being considered. It may be an abstract procedure, but if it doesn't plug into reality then it isn't thought, but merely activity, like that of the liver. |
12586 | Consciousness of a belief isn't a belief that one has it [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: I dispute the view that consciousness of a belief consists in some kind of belief that one has the belief. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.2) | |
A reaction: Thus if one is trying to grasp the notion of higher-order thought, it doesn't have to be just more of same but one level up. Any sensible view of the brain would suggest that one sort of activity would lead into an entirely different sort. |
15494 | We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor] |
Full Idea: It's not clear what the point would be of an explanation of the intentionality of attitudes which presupposes objects that are intentional intrinsically. Why not just say that the attitudes are? | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], Ch.3) |
7326 | Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Sooner or later the physicists will complete the catalogue of ultimate and irreducible things, with the likes of spin, charm and charge. But aboutness won't be on the list; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], 4 Intro) | |
A reaction: I totally agree with this, which I take to be a warning to John Searle against including something called 'intrinsic intentionality' into his ontology. Intentionality 'emerges' out of certain complex brain activity. |
3001 | Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Behaviourists had trouble providing a robust construal of mental causation (and hence had no logical space for a psychology of mental processes). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
A reaction: If they could reduce all mental events to stimulus-response, that seems to fall within the normal procedures of physical causation. There is no problem of mental causation if your ontology is entirely physical. |
2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
Full Idea: For any machine that computes a function by executing an explicit algorithm, there exists a hard-wired machine that computes the same function by not executing an explicit algorithm. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 23) | |
A reaction: It is certainly vital for functionalists to understand that software can be hardwired. Presumably we should understand a hardwired alogirthm as 'implicit'? |
3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Everybody is a functionalist, in that we all hold that mental states are individuated, at least in part, by reference to their causal powers. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.138) | |
A reaction: I might individuate the Prime Minister by the carnation in his buttonhole. However, even a dualist must concede that we individuate mental faculties by their role within the mind. |
5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
Full Idea: Fodor sees behaviour as manifestations of psychological capacities, which result from the subject being a set of interconnected 'homunculi', which in turn have subcomponents, all of it arranged in a hierarchy. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.9 | |
A reaction: This may well miss out the most interesting parts of a mind (such as awareness, and personal identity), but it sounds basically right, especially when an evolutionary history is added to the system. Parts of my mind intrude into my trains of thought. |
2995 | Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Mind/brain supervenience is the best idea anyone has had so far about how mental causation is possible. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 30) | |
A reaction: I would have thought that mind brain identity was a much better idea (see Idea 3440). Supervenience seems to prove that 'mental causation' occurs, but doesn't explain it. |
2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
Full Idea: With Associationism there proved to be no way to get a rational mental life to emerge from the sorts of causal relations among thoughts that the 'laws of association' recognised. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 18) | |
A reaction: This might not be true if you add the concept of evolution, which has refined the associations to generate truth (which is vital for survival). |
3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Central state identity theorists had trouble providing for the nomological possibility of rational machines (and hence no space for a non-biological, e.g. computational, theory of intelligence). | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 67) | |
A reaction: I surmise that a more externalist account of the physical mind might do the trick, by explaining intelligence in terms of an evolved relationship between brain and environment. |
2992 | We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor] |
Full Idea: We are on the verge of solving a great mystery about the mind: how is rationality mechanically possible? | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 20) | |
A reaction: Optimistic, given that AI has struggled to implement natural languages, mainly because common sense knowledge seems too complex to encode. Can a machine determine logical forms of sentences? |
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. |
2988 | Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Commonsense belief/desire psychology explains vastly more of the facts about behaviour than any of the alternative theories available. It could hardly fail to; there are no alternative theories available. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.x) | |
A reaction: The alternative view wouldn't expect a clear-cut theory, because it deals with the endless complexity of brain events. The charge is that Fodor and co oversimplify their account, in their desperation for a 'theory'. |
3010 | Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor] |
Full Idea: A defence of the language of thought has to be an argument that believing and desiring are typically structured states. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.136) | |
A reaction: A structure is one thing, and a language is another. Both believings and desirings can be extremely vague, to the point where the owner is unsure what is believed or desired. They can, of course, be extremely precise. |
2999 | Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor] |
Full Idea: People who ask what the narrow content of the thought that water is wet is (for example) get what they deserve: phenomenalism, verificationism, 'procedural' semantics, or scepticism, according to temperament. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 51) | |
A reaction: The question is whether content IS narrow. We could opt for broad content because then we wouldn't have to worry about scepticism, but I doubt whether we would then sleep well at night. |
3012 | Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If thoughts have their causal roles in virtue of their contents, then two thoughts with identical contents ought to be identical in their causal roles. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.140) | |
A reaction: A pencil would presumably have the same causal role if it wrote a love poem or hate mail. But a pencil is also good for scratching your back. 'Causal role' can be a rather vacuous idea. |
18568 | Philosophy should merely give necessary and sufficient conditions for concept possession [Peacocke, by Machery] |
Full Idea: Peacocke's 'Simple Account' says philosophers should determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for possessing a concept, and psychologists should explain how the human mind meets these conditions. | |
From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2 | |
A reaction: One can't restrict philosophy so easily. Psychologists could do that job themselves, and dump philosophy. Philosophy is interested in the role of concepts in meaning, experience and judgement. If psychologists can contribute to philosophy, fine. |
18571 | Peacocke's account of possession of a concept depends on one view of counterfactuals [Peacocke, by Machery] |
Full Idea: Peacocke's method for discovering the possession conditions of concepts is committed to a specific account of counterfactual judgements - the Simulation Model (judgements we'd make if the antecedent were actual). | |
From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.4 | |
A reaction: Machery concludes that the Simulation Model is incorrect. This appears to be Edgington's theory of conditionals, though Machery doesn't mention her. |
18572 | Peacocke's account separates psychology from philosophy, and is very sketchy [Machery on Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Peacocke's Simple Account fails to connect the psychology and philosophy of concepts, it subordinates psychology to specific field of philosophy, it is committed to analytic/synthetic, and (most important) its method is very sketchy. | |
From: comment on Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.5 | |
A reaction: Machery says Peacocke proposes a research programme, and he is not surprised that no one has every followed. Machery is a well-known champion of 'experimental philosophy', makes philosophy respond to the psychology. |
12577 | Possessing a concept is being able to make judgements which use it [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: Possession of any concept requires the capacity to make judgements whose content contain it. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 2.1) | |
A reaction: Idea 12575 suggested that concept possession was an ability just to think about the concept. Why add that one must actually be able to make a judgement? Presumably to get truth in there somewhere. I may only speculate and fantasise, rather than judge. |
12578 | A concept is just what it is to possess that concept [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: There can be no more to a concept than is determined by a correct account of what it is to possess that concept. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.2) | |
A reaction: He calls this the Principle of Dependence. An odd idea, if you compare 'there is no more to a book than its possession conditions'. If the principle is right, I struggle with the proposal that a philosopher might demonstrate such a principle. |
12587 | Employing a concept isn't decided by introspection, but by making judgements using it [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: On the account I have been developing, what makes it the case that someone is employing one concept rather than another is not constituted by his impression of whether he is, but by complex facts about explanations of his judgements. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 7.2) | |
A reaction: I presume this brings truth into the picture, and hence establishes a link between the concept and the external world, rather than merely with other concepts. There seems to be a shadowy behaviourism lurking in the background. |
12584 | An analysis of concepts must link them to something unconceptualized [Peacocke] |
Full Idea: At some point a good account of conceptual mastery must tie the mastery to abilities and relations that do not require conceptualization by the thinker. | |
From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 5.3) | |
A reaction: This obviously implies a physicalist commitment. Peacocke seeks, as so many do these days in philosophy of maths, to combine this commitment with some sort of Fregean "platonism without tears" (p.101). I don't buy it. |
9335 | Concepts are constituted by their role in a group of propositions to which we are committed [Peacocke, by Greco] |
Full Idea: Peacocke argues that it may be a condition of possessing a certain concept that one be fundamentally committed to certain propositions which contain it. A concept is constituted by playing a specific role in the cognitive economy of its possessor. | |
From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal §9 | |
A reaction: Peacocke is talking about thought and propositions rather than language. Good for him. I always have problems with this sort of view: how can something play a role if it doesn't already have intrinsic properties to make the role possible? |
2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
Full Idea: According to Gricean theories of meaning, the meaning of a sentence is inherited from the propositional attitudes that the sentence is conventionally used to express. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 50) | |
A reaction: Since the propositional attitudes contain propositions, this seems like a very plausible idea. If an indexical like 'I' is involved, the meaning of the sentence is not the same as its 'conventional' use. |
3006 | Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The mechanisms that deliver falsehoods are somehow parasitic on the ones that deliver truths. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.107) | |
A reaction: In the case of a sentence and its negation it is not clear which one is 'parasitic', because that can usually be reversed by paraphrasing. Historically, I very much hope that truth-speaking came first. |
3007 | Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Verification procedures connect terms with their denotations in too many ways. Different routes to 'star' do not determine different semantic values for 'star'. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p.125) | |
A reaction: This fairly conclusively shows that meaning is not 'the method of verification' - but that wasn't a difficult target to hit. |
3004 | The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 79) | |
A reaction: Among other things. It can also arrive from a desire to remember something. A sentence can also acquire meaning compositionally (by assembling) with no use or aim. |
3000 | Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor] |
Full Idea: Meaning holism really is a crazy doctrine. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 60) | |
A reaction: Yes. What is not crazy is a contextualist account of utterances, and a recognition of the contextual and relational ingredient in the meanings of most of our sentences. |
3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
Full Idea: It's an embarrassment for attempts to construct content from functional role that quite different sorts of mental states can nevertheless share their contents. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 70) | |
A reaction: That is, presumably, one content having two different roles. Two contents with the same role is 'multiple realisability'. Pain can tell me I'm damaged, or reveal that my damaged nerves are healing. Problem? |
2996 | Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The identity of the content of mental states does not ensure the identity of their extensions. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Psychosemantics [1987], p. 45) | |
A reaction: Obviously if I am thinking each day about 'my sheep', that won't change if I am unaware that one of them died this morning. …Because I didn’t have the precise number of sheep in mind. |
9336 | A concept's reference is what makes true the beliefs of its possession conditions [Peacocke, by Horwich] |
Full Idea: Peacocke has a distinctive view of reference: The reference of a concept is that which will make true the primitively compelling beliefs that provide its possession conditions. | |
From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §9 | |
A reaction: The first thought is that there might occasionally be more than one referent which would do the job. It seems to be a very internal view of reference, where I take reference to be much more contextual and social. |
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. |
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. |
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 |