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All the ideas for 'Theaetetus', 'What's Wrong with Rape?' and 'Philosophy of Mind'

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73 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato]
     Full Idea: Philosophers are always ready to change direction, if a topic crops up which is more attractive than the one to hand.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 172d)
     A reaction: Which sounds trivial, but it may be what God does.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 2. Analysis by Division
Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato]
     Full Idea: A perfect grasp of any subject depends far more on knowing elements than on knowing complexes.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 206b)
Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato]
     Full Idea: Either a syllable is not the same as its letters, in which case it cannot have the letters as parts of itself, or it is the same as its letters, in which case these basic elements are just as knowable as it is.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205b)
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil]
     Full Idea: There is no such thing as science; there are only sciences: physics, chemistry, meteorology, geology, biology, psychology, sociology.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Intro)
     A reaction: A simple but nice point. It suggests that maybe each science has an entirely different method, and style of reasoning, experiment and explanation. Some have strict laws, others have 'ceteris paribus' laws.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato]
     Full Idea: Just as primary elements are woven together, so their names may be woven together to produce a spoken account, because an account is essentially a weaving together of names.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b)
     A reaction: If justification requires 'logos', and logos is a 'weaving together of names', then Plato might be taken as endorsing the coherence account of justification. Or do the two 'weavings' correspond?
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 3. Eristic
Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato]
     Full Idea: Eristic discussions involve as many tricks and traps as possible, but dialectical discussions involve being serious and correcting the interlocutor's mistakes only when they are his own fault or the result of past conditioning.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 167e)
2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition
A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato]
     Full Idea: A primary element cannot be expressed in an account; it can only be named, for a name is all that it has. But with the things composed of these ...just as the elements are woven together, so the names can woven to become an account.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b01-3)
     A reaction: This is the beginning of what I see as Aristotle's metaphysics, as derived from his epistemology, that is, ontology is what explains, and what we can give an account [logos] of. Aristotle treats this under 'definitions'.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / a. For mathematical platonism
We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato]
     Full Idea: It must surely be true that a man who has completely mastered arithmetic knows all numbers? Because there are pieces of knowledge covering all numbers in his soul.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 198b)
     A reaction: This clearly views numbers as objects. Expectation of knowing them all is a bit startling! They also appear to be innate in us, and hence they appear to be Forms. See Aristotle's comment in Idea 645.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato]
     Full Idea: There are two kinds of change, I think: alteration and motion.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 181d)
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil]
     Full Idea: 'Supervenience' means lower-level objects and properties suffice for the higher level ones, but the higher level is distinct from its ground, which is reflected in the higher level being governed by distinct laws of nature.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: A nice summary of Davidson's idea. It feels wrong to me. Can I create some 'new laws of nature' by combining things novelly in a laboratory so that a supervenient state emerges. Sounds silly to me. Must we invoke God to achieve this?
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 5. Natural Properties
Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil]
     Full Idea: Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: The problem is that anything which can't figure in a causal law will therefore be undetectable, so we could only speculate about the existence of such properties, never know them.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties
A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil]
     Full Idea: A predicate that does not designate a property could nevertheless hold true of an object in virtue of that object's properties. An object is a stone not in virtue of holding the property of being a stone, but because it possesses certain other properties.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: Sounds simple but important, especially in relation to the mind. We are left with the problem of how to individuate a property, and the possibility of 'basic' properties.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 7. Emergent Properties
Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: New combinations of properties are just that: new combinations, not new properties. (This is not to reject complex properties, but only to reaffirm that complex properties are nothing over and above their constituents suitably arranged).
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: I wish I could be so confidence, but no one seems quite sure what a property is. Are they defined causally, or as 'qualities'? If the latter, what is a quality? Are there basic properties? Can properties merge to form a new one?
Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil]
     Full Idea: Complex properties do not "emerge"; they are nothing "over and above" the properties of the simple constituents duly arranged.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: I am glad to see someone challenging the concept of 'emergence', which strikes me as incoherent. Small properties add up to macro-properties (like 'steep', or 'square').
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil]
     Full Idea: If P and Q are predicates denoting properties, we can construct a disjunctive predicate ('P or Q'). But it is not clear that this gives us any right whatever to suppose that 'P or Q' designates a property.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Pref)
     A reaction: An important idea, needed to disentangle our ontology from our language, and realise that they are separate. Properties are natural; predicates are conventional.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: I resist the term 'trope' as it has become common for the proponents of tropes to regard objects as "bundles" of tropes. This turns tropes into something too much resembling parts of objects for my taste. .I think an object is a possessor of properties.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This seems to imply a belief in 'substance', which is an intrinsically dodgy concept, but something has to exist. Keep ontology and epistemology separate! We can only know bundles of properties.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / a. Parts of objects
If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato]
     Full Idea: If a complex or a syllable has no parts and is a single identity, hasn't it turned out to be the same kind of thing as an element or letter?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205d)
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato]
     Full Idea: But this sum now - isn't it just when there is nothing lacking that it is a sum? Yes, necessarily. And won't this very same thing - that from which nothing is lacking - be a whole?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205a)
     A reaction: This seems to be right, be rather too vague and potentially circular to be of much use. What is the criterion for deciding that nothing is lacking?
The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato]
     Full Idea: The whole does not consist of parts; for it did, it would be all the parts and so would be the sum.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 204e)
     A reaction: That is, 'the whole is the sum of its parts' is a tautology! The claim that 'the whole is more than the sum of its parts' gets into similar trouble. See Verity Harte on this.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 9. Ship of Theseus
If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil]
     Full Idea: If a boat can continue to exist after the planks that currently make it up have ceased to exist, and if the planks could continue to exist when the boat does not, then a boat cannot be identified with the planks that make it up at a given time.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This seems obvious, but it opposes Locke's claim that the particles of an object are its identity. Does this mean identities are entirely in our heads, and not a feature of nature? I want to resist that.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / c. Possible worlds realism
You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil]
     Full Idea: We should be suspicious of anyone who embraces the formal apparatus of possible worlds while rejecting the ontology.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Pref)
     A reaction: What matters is that good philosophy should not duck the ontological implications of any apparatus. If only embracing the 'ontology of possible worlds' were a simple matter. What makes one world 'close' to another?
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: Things which are susceptible to a rational account are knowable.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201d)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato]
     Full Idea: A man has passed from mere judgment to expert knowledge of the being of a wagon when he has done so in virtue of having gone over the whole by means of the elements.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207c)
     A reaction: Plato is emphasising that the expert must know the hundred parts of a wagon, and not just the half dozen main components, but here the point is to go over the whole via the parts, and not just list the parts.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is impossible to believe something which is not the case.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 167a)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / d. Cause of beliefs
How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato]
     Full Idea: If the object of a belief is what is not, the object of this belief is nothing; but if there is no object to a belief, then that is not belief at all.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 189a)
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism
Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil]
     Full Idea: Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: Nicely put. There is a certain intellectual integrity about idealism, but it is still mad. The overall picture seems to me incoherent if we don't assume that appearances are bringing us close to reality (without ever quite getting there).
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato]
     Full Idea: Perception is always of something that is, and it is infallible, which suggests that it is knowledge.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 152c)
Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: It would be peculiar if each of us were like a Trojan horse, with a whole bunch of senses sitting inside us, rather than that all these perceptions converge onto a single identity (mind, or whatever one ought to call it).
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 184d)
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato]
     Full Idea: With what physical faculty do we perceive being and not-being, similarity and dissimilarity, identity and difference, oneness and many, odd and even and other maths, ….fineness and goodness?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 185d)
You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: Sight or touch might make someone take eleven for twelve, but he could never form this mistaken belief about the contents of his mind.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 195e)
Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you can't apprehend being you can't apprehend truth, and so a thing could not be known. Therefore knowledge is not located in immediate experience but in thinking about it, since the latter makes it possible to grasp being and truth.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 186c)
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / b. Need for justification
An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you don't know which letters belong together in the right syllables…it is possible for true belief to be accompanied by a rational account and still not be entitled to the name of knowledge.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 208b)
     A reaction: In each case of justification there is a 'clinching' stage, for which there is never going to be a strict rule. It might be foundational, but equally it might be massive coherence, or no alternative.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / a. Agrippa's trilemma
Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato]
     Full Idea: Either a syllable and its letters are equally knowable and expressible in a rational account, or they are both equally unknowable and inexpressible.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 205e)
     A reaction: Presumably you could explain the syllable by the letters, but not vice versa, but he must mean that the explanation is worthless without the letters being explained too. So all explanation is worthless?
Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato]
     Full Idea: If I only have beliefs about Theaetetus when I don't know his distinguishing mark, how on earth were my beliefs about you rather than anyone else?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 209b)
     A reaction: This is a rather intellectualist approach to mental activity. Presumably Theaetetus has lots of distinguishing marks, but they are not conscious. Must Socrates know everything?
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 3. Internal or External / a. Pro-internalism
A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato]
     Full Idea: A rational account might be forming an image of one's belief, as in a mirror or a pond.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 206d)
     A reaction: Not promising, since the image is not going to be clearer than the original, or contain any new information. Maybe it would be clarified by being 'framed', instead of drifting in muddle.
A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato]
     Full Idea: A third sort of rational account (after giving an image, or analysing elements) is being able to mention some mark which differentiates the object in question ('the sun is the brightest heavenly body').
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 208c)
     A reaction: This is Plato's clearest statement of what would be involved in adding the necessary logos to your true belief. An image of it, or an analysis, or an individuation. How about a cause?
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism
Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato]
     Full Idea: Maybe the primary elements of which things are composed are not susceptible to rational accounts. Each of them taken by itself can only be named, but nothing further can be said about it.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201e)
     A reaction: This still seems to be more or less the central issue in philosophy - which things should be treated as 'primitive', and which other things are analysed and explained using the primitive tools?
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato]
     Full Idea: In the case of a wagon, we may only have correct belief, but someone who is able to explain what it is by going through its hundred parts has got hold of a rational account.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207b)
     A reaction: A wonderful example. In science, you know smoking correlates with cancer, but you only know it when you know the mechanism, the causal structure. This may be a general truth.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 5. Dream Scepticism
What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato]
     Full Idea: What evidence could be brought if we were asked at this very moment whether we are asleep and are dreaming all our thoughts?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 158b)
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato]
     Full Idea: To say that everyone believes what is the case, is to concede the truth of the oppositions' beliefs; in other words, the person has to concede that he himself is wrong.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 171a)
How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato]
     Full Idea: Does a relativist have any authority to decide about things which will happen in the future?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 178c)
     A reaction: Nice question! It seems commonsense that such speculations are possible, but without a concept of truth they are ridiculous.
Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato]
     Full Idea: In medicine, at least, most people are not self-sufficient at prescribing and effecting cures for themselves, and here some people are superior to others.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 171e)
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil]
     Full Idea: One generation addresses the qualitative aspect of mentality, the next focuses on its scientific standing, its successor takes up the problem of mental content, then the cycle starts all over again…
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This pinpoints the three interlinked questions. We seem to be currently obsessed with the quality of experience (the 'Hard Question'), but the biggest questions is how the three aspects fit together. If there are three necessities here, they must coexist.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil]
     Full Idea: If a mental property is realised by a material property, then it looks as though its material realiser pre-empts any causal contribution on the part of the realised mental property.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This has a beautiful simplicity about it. I can see how some very odd phenomena might suddenly appear out of a physical combination, but not how entirely new causal laws can be created.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil]
     Full Idea: Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: If only I knew what a 'quality' was. Do combinations have qualities in addition to the qualities of the components? A pair of trees, a pile of sand, a mass of neurons.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality
Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that intentional states are exhausted by propositional attitudes, but what about mental imagery? You may have propositional attitudes to food, but I would wager that most of your thoughts about it are imagistic.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: Seems right. If I encounter an object by which I am bewildered, I may form no propositions at all about it, but I can still contemplate the object.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil]
     Full Idea: The prevailing 'externalist' line on intentionality regards intentional states of mind as owing their content (what they are of, or about) to causal relations agents bear to the world.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This goes back to Putnam's Twin Earth. 'Meanings aren't in the head'. I may defer to experts about what 'elm' means, but I may also be arrogantly wrong about what 'juniper' means.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 4. Errors in Introspection
Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil]
     Full Idea: Error, like truth, presupposes judgement. Judgements you make about your conscious states are distinct from those states. This leaves room for error.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This sounds very neat. The reply would have to be that a lot of introspection is not judgement, but direct perception of self-evident facts and truths. I agree with Heil.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil]
     Full Idea: If causal relations boil down to nothing more than regularities (as Hume suggests), then it is a mistake to regard the absence of a mechanism or causal link between mental events and material events as a special problem.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: So critics of Descartes who were baffled by interaction, were actually sniffing Hume's wholesale scepticism about necessary causation. Even so, physical conjunction is more tangible than spiritual conjunction.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil]
     Full Idea: If there are elementary particles, then they are certainly capable of endless interactions beyond those in which they actually engage. Everything points to dispositionality being a fundamental feature of our world.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: I'm not convinced that my ontology has to include something called a 'disposition'. Dispositions are the consequence of how things are. Are there passive dispositions?
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil]
     Full Idea: Any attempt to say what behaviour follows from a given state of mind can be shown to be false by producing an example in which the state of mind is present but, owing to the addition of new beliefs and desires, the behaviour does not follow.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: The objection seems misplaced against eliminative behaviourism, because there are held to be no mental states to correlate with the behavior. There is just behaviour, some times the same, sometimes different.
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 3. Psycho-Functionalism
Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil]
     Full Idea: Although your heart is a material object, the property of being a heart is, if we accept the functionalist picture, not a material property.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Presumably functional properties are not physical because they are multiply realisable. The property of being a heart is more like a theoretical flow diagram than it is like a muscle. That word 'property' again…
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil]
     Full Idea: If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: The problem is not that qualia must be denied, but that there is strong pressure to class them as epiphenomena. However, a raw colour can have a causal role (e.g. in an art gallery). Best to say (with Chalmers?) that functions cause qualia?
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 1. Reductionism critique
Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil]
     Full Idea: The categories definitive of a given science mark off boundaries that are largely invisible within science at lower levels. That is why there is, in general, no prospect of reducing a higher-level science to a science at some lower level.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This sounds slick, but I am unconvinced. Molecules only exist at the level of chemistry, but they are built up out of physics, and the 'boundaries' could be explained in physics, if you had the knowledge and patience.
Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil]
     Full Idea: The categories embedded in a higher-level science (psychology, for instance) designate genuine properties of objects, which are not reducible to properties found in sciences at lower levels.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This isn't an argument against reductionism. It is obviously true that someone with a physics degree won't make a good doctor. It's these wretched 'property' things again. Is 'found repulsive by me' a property terrorists?
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 3. Property Dualism
'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: 'Property dualism' is the view according to which the mental and the physical are not distinguishable kinds of substance, but distinct families of properties.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.2 n)
     A reaction: I am struggling to make sense of properties being in distinct families. If it is like smells and colours, it doesn't say much, and if the difference is more profound then it begins to look like old-fashioned dualism in disguise.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: The early identity theorists talked of identifying mental processes with brain processes, but I am now proposing it as a theory about properties.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Since a process is presumably composed of more basic ontological ingredients, this is presumably a good move, but there is still a vagueness about the whole concept of a 'property'.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil]
     Full Idea: Some have argued that eliminativism about propositional attitudes is self-refuting. If no one believes anything, then how could we believe the eliminativist thesis?
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: Sounds slick, but it doesn't strike me as a big problem. Presumably you don't 'believe' eliminativism. You treat some of your brain processes as if they fell into the fictional category of 'belief'.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil]
     Full Idea: The identity theory is preferable to dualism since 1) if mental events are neurological, it is easy to explain causal relations between them, and 2) if we can account for mental phenomena by reference to brains and their properties, we don't need minds.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: One might add that it fits into the overall scientific world, and permits the possible closure of physics. The challenge is that identity theory must 'save the phenomena'.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil]
     Full Idea: The functionalists' point is that higher-level properties like being in pain or computing the sum of 7 and 5 are not to be identified with ("reduced to") or mistaken for their realisers.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: I take it that functionalist minds can't be reduced because they are abstractions rather than physical entities. Nevertheless, the implied ontology seems to be entirely physical, and hence in some sense reductionist.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil]
     Full Idea: Proponents of multiple realisability regard it as vital to distinguish realised, higher-level properties from their lower-level realisers.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: So that the very idea of 'multiple realisability' begs the question. Minds are private, so it is never clear what has been realised, especially in non-linguistic brains.
Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil]
     Full Idea: Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties; it is the phenomenon of predicates applying to objects in virtue of distinct, though pertinently similar, properties possessed by those objects.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: The analogies for multiple realisability usually involve functions rather than properties or predicates (different types of corkscrew). Pain or belief in danger are not just 'predicates'.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / c. Knowledge argument
A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil]
     Full Idea: Imagine a neuroscientist who is intimately familiar with the physiology of headaches, but who has never actually experienced a headache.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: A more realistic version of Frank Jackson's 'Mary'. Doctors need to know that headaches are unpleasant; what they actually feel like seems irrelevant (epiphenomenal). What's it like to only have two pairs of shoes?
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil]
     Full Idea: A fierce debate has raged between proponents of 'pictorial' conceptions of imagery (Kosslyn) and those who take imagery to be propositional (Pylyshyn).
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This may not be a simple dilemma. Pure pictorial imagery seem possible (abstract patterns) and pure propositions are okay (maths), but in most thought they are inextricable. The image is the proposition (a nuclear cloud).
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil]
     Full Idea: Folk psychology and neuroscience are not competitors, any more than cartography and geology are competitors.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This seems true enough, unless someone like Fodor claims that the correct way to do neuroscience is to try to explicate folk psychology categories in terms of brain function. Folk psychology is fine for folk.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil]
     Full Idea: I intend the notion of truth-conditions to correspond to what I have called 'literal meaning'.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: Yes. If I identify myself to you by saying "the spam is in the fridge", that always has a literal meaning (which we assemble from the words), as well as connotation in this particular context.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil]
     Full Idea: There is something puzzling about the notion that someone could understand the sentences "birds warble" and "tigers growl", yet have no idea what the sentence "tigers warble" meant.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: True enough, but this need not imply the full thesis of linguistic holism. Words are assembled like bricks. I know tigers might warble, but stones don't. Might fish warble? Or volcanoes? I must know that 'birds warble' is not a tautology.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil]
     Full Idea: Anyone who takes propositions to be abstract entities owes the rest of us an account of how human beings could interact with such things.
     From: John Heil (Philosophy of Mind [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: He makes this sound impossible, but that would mean that all abstraction is impossible, and there are no such things as ideas and concepts. In the end something has to be miraculous, so let it be our ability to think about abstractions.
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality
A rape disregards the status of being a person - but so does all assault [Foa]
     Full Idea: In a rape a person is used without proper regard for her personhood - but this is true of every kind of assault.
     From: Pamela Foa (What's Wrong with Rape? [1977], 1)
     A reaction: This is a good step towards her attempt to pin down what is specifically wrong with rape, which strikes me as an extremely important question, and not merely in order to justify punishments.
Rape of children is dreadful, but no one thinks children should have a right of consent [Foa]
     Full Idea: Rape of children is at least as heinous as rape of adults, though few believe that children have or ought to have the same large domain of consent adults (male and female) ought to have.
     From: Pamela Foa (What's Wrong with Rape? [1977], 1)
     A reaction: A powerful point. She is not quite spelling out the crux, which is that no one thinks children should have a right to consent to sexual intercourse, which means that consent is irrelevant in such a case of rape. So it can't be the key to adult rape?
If men should lust and women shouldn't, that makes rape the prevalent sexual model [Foa]
     Full Idea: We are taught that sexual desires are desires women ought not to have and men must have. This is the model which makes necessary an eternal battle of the sexes. It explains why rape is the prevalent model of sexuality.
     From: Pamela Foa (What's Wrong with Rape? [1977], 3)
     A reaction: A striking thought. See 'The Origins of Sex' by F.Dabhoiwala, which claims that women used to be seen as the sexual predators, and the balance shifted in the 18thC. Are women obliged to exhibit lust, in order to defuse rapacious desires?
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / c. God is the good
God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: It is impossible for God to be immoral and not to be the acme of morality; and the only way any of us can approximate to God is to become as moral as possible.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 176c)
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato]
     Full Idea: The elimination of evil is impossible, Theodorus; there must always be some force ranged against good.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 176a)