Combining Texts

All the ideas for '67: Platonic Questions', 'Three theses about dispositions' and 'Boole calculus and the Concept script'

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3 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance.
     From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001)
     A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Dispositions are second-order properties, the property of having some property [Jackson/Pargetter/Prior, by Armstrong]
     Full Idea: It was proposed that dispositions are second-order properties of objects: the property of having some property.
     From: report of Jackson/Pargetter/Prior (Three theses about dispositions [1982]) by David M. Armstrong - Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' p.xvii
     A reaction: It seems more plausible to say that dispositions are first-order properties - that is, properties are dispositions, which are causal powers. A disposition to smoke is to have a causal power which leads to smoking.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 6. Judgement / a. Nature of Judgement
We don't judge by combining subject and concept; we get a concept by splitting up a judgement [Frege]
     Full Idea: Instead of putting a judgement together out of an individual as subject and an already previously formed concept as predicate, we do the opposite and arrive at a concept by splitting up the content of possible judgement.
     From: Gottlob Frege (Boole calculus and the Concept script [1881], p.17)
     A reaction: This is behind holistic views of sentences, and hence of whole languages, and behind Quine's rejection of 'properties' inferred from the predicates in judgements.