111 ideas
| 22138 | Science rests on scholastic metaphysics, not on Hume, Kant or Carnap [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical principles that allow the scientist to learn from experience are scholastic, not Humean or Kantian or those of twentieth-century positivism. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: Love this. Most modern philosophers of science would be deeply outraged by this, but I reckon that careful and open-minded interviews with scientists would prove it to be correct. We want to know the essential nature of electrons. |
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 3426 | If one theory is reduced to another, we make fewer independent assumptions about the world [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If we reduce one theory to another, we reduce the number of independent assumptions about the world. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.215) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 3431 | Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty) [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Supervenience opens up the possibility of a relationship that gives us determination, or dependence, without reduction (as beauty supervenes on physical properties, but can't be given a physical definition). | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.223) | |
| A reaction: Beauty is a bad analogy, since it rather obviously involves a beholder. There is nothing more to a statue than a substance of a certain shape. There are no good analogies for this sort of supervenience, because it doesn't exist. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 3437 | 'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Physicalists are fond of saying that physical facts determine all the facts. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.232) | |
| A reaction: I totally agree with this slogan. As a view, it seems to me that it is reinforced by essentialism (see the ideas of Brian Ellis), which gives some indication of how facts are physically determined, and why there is no alternative. |
| 3430 | Resemblance or similarity is the core of our concept of a property [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Resemblance or similarity is the very core of our concept of a property. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.219) |
| 3432 | Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Emergent properties are said to be irreducible to, and unpredictable from, the lower-level phenomena from which they emerge (as weight is a 'resultant' property, but the transparency of water is an 'emergent' property). | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.228) | |
| A reaction: So weight is predictable, but transparency is a surprise? But presumably the transparency of water is totally predictable, once you understand it. Emergent properties are either dualist or reducible, in my view. |
| 3434 | Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things [Kim] |
| Full Idea: For the emergentist why pain emerges when C-fibres are excited remains a mystery (a 'brute fact'), but such properties then take on a life of their own as 'downward causation'. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.229) | |
| A reaction: I don't think there are any 'brute facts', except perhaps at the lowest level of physics. Whatever happened to the principle of sufficient reason? Is the mind like God - a causal source which is uncaused? |
| 3436 | Should properties be individuated by their causal powers? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Arguably, properties must be individuated in terms of their causal powers. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.230) |
| 22134 | Thoughts are general, but the world isn't, so how can we think accurately? [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Our thoughts are full of generalities, but the world contains no generalities. So how can our thoughts accurately represent the world? This is the problem of universals. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I so love it when someone comes up with a really clear explanation of a problem, and this is a beauty from Stephen Boulter. Only a really clear explanation can motivate philosophical issues for non-philosophers. |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 22150 | Logical possibility needs the concepts of the proposition to be adequate [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: One can only be sure that a proposition expresses a genuine logical possibility if one can be sure that one's concepts are adequate to things referred to in the proposition. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 4) | |
| A reaction: Boulter says this is a logical constraint place on logical possibility by the scholastics which tends to be neglected by modern thinkers, who only worry about whether the proposition implies a contradiction. So we now use thought experiments. |
| 3406 | Counterfactuals are either based on laws, or on nearby possible worlds [Kim, by PG] |
| Full Idea: For counterfactuals there is the 'nomic-derivational' approach (which logically derives them from laws), and the 'possible world' approach (based on truth in worlds close to the actual one). | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.141) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 22139 | Experiments don't just observe; they look to see what interventions change the natural order [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Experiments differ from observational studies in that experiments usually involve intervening in some way in the natural order to see if altering something about that order causes a change in the response of that order. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced by this. Lots of experiments isolate a natural process, rather than 'intervening'. Chemists constantly purify substances. Particle accelerators pick out things to accelerate. Does 'intervening' in nature even make sense? |
| 22136 | Science begins with sufficient reason, de-animation, and the importance of nature [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Three assumptions needed for the emergence of science are central to medieval thought: that the natural order is subject to the principle of sufficient reason, that nature is de-animated, and that it is worthy of study. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 2) | |
| A reaction: A very illuminating and convincing observation. Why did Europe produce major science? The answer is likely to be found in Christianity. |
| 3368 | Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: It is generally held that there are two broad categories of mental phenomena - qualitative states and intentional states (but what do they have in common?). | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 23) | |
| A reaction: I am happy to accept this orthodox modern analysis. Putting it more simply: minds exist to enable experience and thought. I judge a priori that the two aspects are not separate. Qualia exist to serve thought, and qualia are necessary for thought. |
| 3392 | Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Unless mental properties have causal powers, there would be little point in worrying about them. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.118) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't, on its own, actually rule out epiphenomenalism, but it does show why it barely qualifies as a serious theory. One might, in fact, say that we simply can't worry about something which has no causal powers. The powers might not be physical… |
| 3396 | Experiment requires mental causation [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Experimentation presupposes mental-to-physical causation and is impossible without it. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.128) | |
| A reaction: So an epiphenomenalist can't do experiments? Kim implies that there is some special mental assessment of the feedback from physical events, but presumably a robot or a zombie could do experiments. Spiders do experiments. |
| 3397 | Beliefs cause other beliefs [Kim] |
| Full Idea: A brief reflection makes it evident that most of our beliefs are generated by other beliefs we hold, and "generation" here could only mean causal generation. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.128) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, and yet implies an uncomfortable determinism, as if all our beliefs just happened to us. I don't claim proper free will, but I do say there is an element in belief formation which is just caused by bunches of beliefs. Call it character. |
| 3367 | Both thought and language have intentionality [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Mental states are not the only things which exhibit intentionality - words and sentences can also refer to or represent facts or states of affairs. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 22) | |
| A reaction: This points to Searle's distinction between 'intrinsic' and 'derived' intentionality (see Idea 3465). We must now explain the difference between verbal intentionality and non-verbal intentionality (both as phenomena, and as information). |
| 3365 | Intentionality involves both reference and content [Kim] |
| Full Idea: There is referential intentionality (that some of our thoughts refer, or are 'about' something) and content intentionality (that propositional attitudes have content or meaning, often expressed by full sentences). | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 21) | |
| A reaction: So could these be the external and internal components of content? Which might be the causal/historical component, and the descriptive component? Which might be known by (indirect) acquaintance and description? |
| 3360 | Are pains pure qualia, or do they motivate? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Are pains only sensory events, or do they also have a motivational component (e.g. aversiveness)? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 7) | |
| A reaction: A nice question. Given the occasional genuine masochist, and the way some people love tastes that others hate, it has always seemed to me that aversiveness was not a necessary property of pain. I couldn't train myself to like pain, though… |
| 3366 | Pain has no reference or content [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Some mental phenomena - in particular, sensations like tickles and pains - do not seem to exhibit either reference or content. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 21) | |
| A reaction: This could be challenged. These sensations cannot be had without a bodily location, and they give information about possible contact or damage. |
| 3389 | Inverted qualia and zombies suggest experience isn't just functional [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If inverted qualia, or absent qualia (zombies), are possible in functionally equivalent systems, qualia are not capturable by functional definitions. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.114) | |
| A reaction: The point here (I take it) is that we don't have to go the whole hog of saying the qualia are therefore epiphenomenal, although that is implied. How about a fail-safe situation, where qualia do it for me, and something else does the same for zombies? |
| 3391 | Crosswiring would show that pain and its function are separate [Kim, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If you crosswire your 'pain box' and your 'itch box', the functionalist says you are in pain if the inputs and outputs are for pain, even though the feeling is of an itch. | |
| From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.115) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: If functionalists would indeed say this, then the objection seems to me almost conclusive. But they might well say that such simple crosswiring won't work. Itching won't produce pain behaviour - it lacks the correct function. |
| 22135 | Our concepts can never fully capture reality, but simplification does not falsify [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: While the natural order is richer than our conceptual representations of it, nonetheless our concepts can be adequate to real singulars because simplification is not falsification. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I don't know if 'simplification' is one of the faculties I am trying to identify. I suspect it is a common factor among most of our intellectual faculties. I love 'simplification is not falsification'. Vagueness isn't falsification either. |
| 3422 | Externalism about content makes introspection depend on external evidence [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Externalism about content would have the consequence that most of our knowledge of our own intentional states is indirect and must be based on external evidence. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.207) | |
| A reaction: I think this is a confusion, endemic in discussions of externalism. If what Shakespeare meant by 'water' is H2O, or Putnam means by 'elm' what experts say, the point is that their meanings are NOT part of their intentional states, which are bookmarks. |
| 3412 | How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: How do we know that we are angry rather than embarrassed? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.159) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question, because the only answer I (or anyone?) can think of is that they are distinguished by their content. Event A is annoying, while event B is embarrassing. Either of those feelings is almost inconceivable without its content. |
| 3363 | We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing [Kim] |
| Full Idea: It is not always easy for us to determine what emotion (or even physical sensations) we are experiencing. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 18) | |
| A reaction: Confused sensations are, I would have thought, rare. Emotions, I think, are only confused when they are weak, and then a lot of the confusion is merely verbal. Our body and intuitions understand the feeling well enough, but we lack the vocabulary. |
| 3409 | Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Since Cartesian dualism implies causation from outside of the physical domain, this means there can be no complete physical theory of the physical domain. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.147) | |
| A reaction: This, I think, should be taken as a very strong argument against dualism, rather than as bad news for physics. Some exception might make the closure of physics impossible, but the claim that our brain is the exception looks highly suspect. |
| 3399 | If epiphenomenalism were true, we couldn't report consciousness [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If epiphenomenalism were true, it would be a mystery how such things could be known to us. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.130) | |
| A reaction: If a brain were asked whether it was conscious, it would presumably say 'yes', but (if epiphenomenalism were true) the cause of that would have to be brain events, and NOT information that it is conscious, which the brain could not have. Big objection. |
| 3390 | Are inverted or absent qualia coherent ideas? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers doubt the coherence of the very idea of inverted or absent qualia. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.115) | |
| A reaction: The possibility of inverted qualia with identical brain structures strikes me as nil, but it would be odd to deny that qualia could be changed by brain surgery, given that insects can see ultra-violet, and some people are colourblind. |
| 3414 | What could demonstrate that zombies and inversion are impossible? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Is there anything about the qualitative characters of mental states which, should we come to know it, would convince us that zombies and qualia inversion are not really possible? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.171) | |
| A reaction: The issue is what causes the qualitative states, not their 'characters'. This strikes me as falling into the trap of thinking that 'what it is like to be..' is a crucial issue. I think zombies are impossible, but not because I experience redness. |
| 3359 | Cartesian dualism fails because it can't explain mental causation [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Its inability to explain the possibility of "mental causation" doomed Cartesian dualism. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 4) | |
| A reaction: This is a modern way of stating the interaction problem. Personally I am inclined to think that dualism was doomed by the spread of the scientific materialist view to every other corner of our knowledge except the mind. Plenty of causes baffle us. |
| 3369 | Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Logical behaviourism says any meaningful statement about mental phenomena can be translated without loss of content into a statement solely about behavioural and physical phenomena. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 29) | |
| A reaction: Also called analytical behaviourism. If we are supposed to infer the ontology of mental states from language, this makes me cross. Maybe we only discuss mentality in behavioural terms because we are epistemologically, and hence linguistically, limited. |
| 3428 | Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Behaviourism can be considered as an attempt to reduce the mental to the physical via definitional bridge principles (every mental expression being given a behavioural definition). | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.217) | |
| A reaction: Effectively these would (if they had been discoverable) have been the elusive psycho-physical laws (which Davidson says do not exist). The objection to behaviourism is precisely that there is no fixed behaviour attached to a given mental state. |
| 3380 | Are dispositions real, or just a type of explanation? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Functionalists take a "realist" approach to dispositions whereas the behaviourist embraces an "instrumentalist" line. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 78) | |
| A reaction: A helpful distinction, which immediately shows why functionalism is superior to behaviourism. There must be some explanation of mental dispositions, and the instrumental view is essentially a refusal to think about the real problem. |
| 3371 | Behaviour depends on lots of mental states together [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Mind-to-behaviour connections are always defeasible - by the occurrence of a further mental state. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 35) | |
| A reaction: But then an object's falling under gravity is always defeasible, by someone catching it first. This popular idea is meant to show that there could, as Davidson puts it, 'no psycho-physical laws', but I suspect the laws are just complex, like weather laws. |
| 3372 | Behaviour is determined by society as well as mental states [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The factors that determine exactly what you are doing when you produce a physical gesture include the customs, habits and conventions that are in force, so it is unlikely that anyone could produce correct behavioural definitions of mental terms. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 36) | |
| A reaction: This problem can be added to the problem that it is hard to specify behaviour without reference to mentalistic terms. The point is clearly right, as what I am doing when I wave my hand in the air will depend on all sorts of conventions and expectations. |
| 3373 | Snakes have different pain behaviour from us [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If it is an analytic truth that anyone in pain has a tendency to wince or groan, what about snakes? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 37) | |
| A reaction: Snakes do, however, exhibit what looks like 'I really don't like that' behaviour, and their rapid avoidance movements are identical to ours. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure what a snake does what it has a stomach upset. I see Kim's point. |
| 3370 | What behaviour goes with mathematical beliefs? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Is there even a loosely definable range of bodily behaviour that is characteristically exhibited by people when they believe, say, that there is no largest prime number? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 32) | |
| A reaction: This is a highly persuasive argument against behaviourism. Very abstract and theoretical thoughts have no related behaviour, especially among non-mathematicians. I probably believe this idea about numbers, but I can't think what to do about it. |
| 3379 | Neurons seem to be very similar and interchangeable [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Most neurons, it has been said, are pretty much alike and largely interchangeable. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 76) | |
| A reaction: This fact, if true, is highly significant, because the correct theory of the mind must therefore be some sort of functionalism. If what a neuron is is insignificant, then what it does must be what matters. |
| 3388 | Machine functionalism requires a Turing machine, causal-theoretical version doesn't [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Machine functionalism requires a mental state to be a physical realisation of a Turing machine; causal-theoretical functionalism only requires that there be appropriate "internal states". | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.112) | |
| A reaction: Searle's objection to the Turing machine version seems good - that such a machine has an implicit notion of a user/interpreter, which is absent from this theory of mind. |
| 3384 | The person couldn't run Searle's Chinese Room without understanding Chinese [Kim] |
| Full Idea: It is by no means clear that any human could manage to do what Searle imagines himself to be doing in the Chinese Room - that is, short of throwing away the rule book and learning some real Chinese. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.100) | |
| A reaction: It is not clear how a rule book could contain answers to an infinity of possible questions. The Chinese Room is just a very poor analogy with what is envisaged in the project of artificial intelligence. |
| 3393 | How do functional states give rise to mental causation? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: On the functionalist account of mental properties, just where does a mental property get its causal powers? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.118) | |
| A reaction: That is the key problem. Something can only have a function if it has intrinsic powers (corkscrews are rigid and helix-shaped). It can't be irrelevant that pain hurts. |
| 3439 | Reductionism gets stuck with qualia [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The main obstacle to mind-body reduction is qualia. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.236) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am also impressed by Leibniz's Mill (Idea 2109). No microscope could ever reveal the contents of thought. How can it be so vivid for the owner, but totally undetectable to an observer? |
| 3427 | Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Most antireductionist arguments focus on the unavailability of bridge laws to effect the reduction of psychological theory to physical theory (as found in reducing the gas laws to theories about molecules). | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.216) | |
| A reaction: Reduction can, of course, be achieved by identity rather than by bridge laws. I would say that all that prevents us from predicting mental events from physical ones is the sheer complexity involved. Cf. predicting the detailed results of an explosion. |
| 3376 | We can't assess evidence about mind without acknowledging phenomenal properties [Kim] |
| Full Idea: In order to make sense of the empirical character of mind-brain identity, we must acknowledge the existence of phenomenal properties. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 66) | |
| A reaction: Mind-brain identity is, of course, an ontological theory, not an epistemological one (like empiricism). I suspect that the basis for my belief in reductive physicalism is an intuition, which I am hoping is a rational intuition. Cf. Idea 3989. |
| 3424 | Most modern physicalists are non-reductive property dualists [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The most widely accepted form of physicalism today is the nonreductive variety, ...which combines ontological physicalism with property dualism. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.212) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that property dualism is actually in decline, but we will see. I have yet to find a coherent definition of property dualism. If being simultaneously red and square isn't property dualism, then what is it? Sounds like dualism to me. |
| 3362 | Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If one accepts the supervenience of mental on physical, this logically implies that there can only be one Cartesian soul, because such souls are physically indiscernible, and hence mentally indiscernible. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 10) | |
| A reaction: Not very persuasive. Brains are certainly discernible, and so are parts of brains. Egos might be mentally discernible. I don't find my notion of personal identity collapsing just because I espouse property dualism. |
| 3413 | Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The main argument for the physical supervenience of qualia, then, is the apparent conceivability of zombies and qualia inversion in organisms physically indistinguishable from us. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.171) | |
| A reaction: Since neither zombies nor qualia inversion for identical brains seem to me to be even remotely conceivable, I won't trouble myself with the very vague concept of 'supervenience'. |
| 3374 | Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Token physicalism (as opposed to type physicalism) is a weak doctrine which simply says that any event or occurrence with a mental property has some physical property or other. It is not committed to reductionism. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 61) | |
| A reaction: Sounds nice, but it seems incoherent to me. How can something have a physical property if it isn't physical? Try 'it isn't coloured, but has colour properties', or 'not a square, but with square properties'. 'Not divine, but divine properties' maybe. |
| 3433 | The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain [Kim] |
| Full Idea: From the emergentist point of view, the reductionists bridge laws are precisely what need to be explained. Why do these mental-physical correlations hold? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.229) | |
| A reaction: Everyone is happy with the bridge laws from chemistry to physics, but no one knows (deep down) why those exact laws hold. We need to understand what consciousness is; its cause will then, I think, become apparent. |
| 3377 | Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The two best know attempts to analyse away mental states are Armstrong's causal conception of such states (e.g. pain is a neural event caused by tissue damage), and Smart's 'topic-neutral translation'. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 67) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong's view certainly seems to be missing something, since his 'pain' could do the job without consciousness. I take Smart's approach to be the germ of the right answer. |
| 3438 | Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim] |
| Full Idea: For the reductionist, no new causal powers emerge at higher levels, which goes against the claims of the emergentist and the non-reductive physicalist. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.232) | |
| A reaction: I would say that all higher level causes are simply the sums of lower level causes, as in chemistry and physics. What could possibly produced the power at the higher level, apart from the constituents of the thing? Magic? |
| 3440 | Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If reductionism goes, so does the intelligibility of mental causation. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.237) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. Substance dualism turns mental causation into a miracle, but property dualism is really no better. If no laws connect brain and mind, you have no account. I don't see how 'reasons are causes' (Davidson) helps at all. |
| 3375 | If an orange image is a brain state, are some parts of the brain orange? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If an orange visual image is a brain state then, by the indiscernibility of identicals, some brain state must also be orange. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 64) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the Hardest of all Hard Questions: how can I experience orange if my neurons haven't turned orange? What on earth is orangeness? I don't believe it is a 'microproperty' of orange objects; it's in us. |
| 3411 | How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another? [Kim] |
| Full Idea: How do you find out that you believe, rather than, say, doubt or merely hope, that it will rain tomorrow? | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.159) | |
| A reaction: There should be a special medal created for philosophers who ask reasonable questions which are impossible to answer. They are among the greatest discoveries. |
| 3386 | Folk psychology has been remarkably durable [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Commonsense psychology seems to have an advantage over scientific psychology: its apparent greater stability. Scientific theories seem to come and go. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.110) | |
| A reaction: This seems to make the assumption that the folk are in universal long-term agreement about such things, which seems doubtful. See Ideas 2987 and 3410. |
| 3394 | Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory [Kim] |
| Full Idea: There is the "theory" theory of commonsense psychology, and also a "simulation" theory, which says it is not a matter of laws, but of simulating the behaviour of others, using ourselves as models. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.123) | |
| A reaction: Using ourselves as models may be the normal and correct way to relate to people within our own culture, but we have to start theorising when we encounter (e.g.) suicide bombers. |
| 3387 | A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling [Kim] |
| Full Idea: A culture that lacked our folk psychology would be unintelligible to us, and its language untranslatable into our own. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.110) | |
| A reaction: Surely we can manage to discuss the processing life of a robot, without having to resort to anthropomorphic psychology? Its human-style behaviour will fit, but the rest blatantly won't. |
| 3410 | Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Freudian depth psychology has now almost achieved the status of folk psychology of the sophisticates. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.158) | |
| A reaction: You don't need to be a 'sophisticate' to laugh knowingly when someone makes an embarrassing Freudian slip. Terms like 'neurotic' are commonplace among modern folk. |
| 3382 | A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The Turing test is too tough, because something doesn't have to be smart enough to outwit a human (or even have language) to have mentality or intelligence. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 97) | |
| A reaction: Presumably an alien with an IQ of 580 would also fail the Turing test. Indeed people of normal ability, but from a very different culture, might also fail. However, most of us would pass it. |
| 3383 | The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The Turing test is too narrow, because it is designed to fool a human interrogator, but there could be creatures which are intelligent but still fail the test. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p. 97) | |
| A reaction: I think the key test for intelligence would be a capacity for metathought. 'What do you think of the idea that x?' Their thoughts about x might be utterly stupid, of course. How do you measure 'stupid'? |
| 3408 | Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds [Kim] |
| Full Idea: States that have the same intrinsic properties - the same neural/physical properties - may have different contents if they are embedded in different environments. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.146) | |
| A reaction: This is a way of expressing externalism. It depends what you mean by 'contents'. I struggle to see how "H2O" could be the content of the word 'water' among ancient Greeks. |
| 3420 | Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The difference in the two types of 'water' in the Twin Earth experiment seem psychologically irrelevant, for behaviour causation or explanation. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.203) | |
| A reaction: A rather important point. No matter how externalist you are about what content really is, people can only act on the internal aspects of it. |
| 3418 | 'Arthritis in my thigh' requires a social context for its content to be meaningful [Kim] |
| Full Idea: The example of someone claiming "arthritis in my thigh" shows that the content of belief depends, at least in part but crucially, on the speech practices of the linguistic community in which we situate the subject. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.197) | |
| A reaction: Personally I find this social aspect to meaning to be more convincing that Putnam's idea that the physical world is part of meaning. It connects nicely with the social aspects of justification. |
| 3421 | Content is best thought of as truth conditions [Kim] |
| Full Idea: It is standard to take contents as truth conditions. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.203) | |
| A reaction: This tradition runs from Frege to Davidson, and has been extended to truth conditions in possible worlds. Rivals will involve intentions, or eliminativism about meaning. |
| 3416 | Content may match several things in the environment [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If content is said to be 'covariance' with something in the environment, then the belief that there are horses in the field covaries reliably with the presence of horses in the field, but also the presence of horse genes in the field. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.192) | |
| A reaction: That's the end of that interesting proposal, then. Or is it? Looking at the field from a distance this is right, but down the microscope, the covariance varies. The theory lives on. |
| 3419 | Pain, our own existence, and negative existentials, are not external [Kim] |
| Full Idea: No external factors seem to be required for Fred's belief that he is in pain, or that he exists, or that there are no unicorns. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.198) | |
| A reaction: This is an extremely important observation for anyone who was getting over-excited about external accounts of content. Unicorns might connect externally to horns and horses. |
| 3417 | Content depends on other content as well as the facts [Kim] |
| Full Idea: An objection to the 'covariance' theory of content is that what you believe is influenced, often crucially, by what else you believe. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.193) | |
| A reaction: I can't think of a reply to this, if the covariance theory is suggesting that content just IS covariance of mental states with the environment. Externalism says that mind extends into the world. |
| 22152 | Aristotelians accept the analytic-synthetic distinction [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle and the scholastics accept the analytic/synthetic distinction, but do not take it to be particularly significant. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 5) | |
| A reaction: I record this because I'm an Aristotelian, and need to know what I'm supposed to think. Luckily, I accept the distinction. |
| 3403 | We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs [Kim] |
| Full Idea: We attribute to a subject beliefs that are obvious logical consequences of beliefs already attributed to him. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.135) | |
| A reaction: Depends what you mean by 'obvious'. Presumably they must be judged obvious to the believer, but only if they have thought of them. We can't believe all the simple but quirky implications of our beliefs. |
| 3402 | If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction [Kim] |
| Full Idea: If someone says "I do and I don't like x", we do not take her to be expressing a literally contradictory belief. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.135) | |
| A reaction: It might mean 'one minute I like it, and the next minute I don't', where there seems to be a real contradiction, with a time factor. You can't sustain both preferences with conviction. |
| 22156 | The facts about human health are the measure of the values in our lives [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The objective facts relating to human health broadly construed are the facts that measure the moral value of our actions, policies and institutions. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the Aristotelian approach to facts and values, which I thoroughly endorse. To say there is nothing instrinsically wrong with being unhealthy is an absurd attitude. |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 3401 | A common view is that causal connections must be instances of a law [Kim] |
| Full Idea: A widely but not universally accepted principle is that causally connected events must instantiate a law. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.133) |
| 3407 | Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim] |
| Full Idea: Some laws are held to be 'strict', and others involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause. | |
| From: Jaegwon Kim (Philosophy of Mind [1996], p.143) |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |