7 ideas
| 7441 | Experiences are defined by their causal role, and causal roles belong to physical states [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The definitive characteristic of any experience is its causal role, its most typical causes and effects; but we materialists believe that these causal roles which belong by analytic necessity to experiences belong in fact to certain physical states. | |
| From: David Lewis (An Argument for the Identity Theory [1966], §I) | |
| A reaction: This is the Causal version of functionalism, which Armstrong also developed. The word 'typical' leads later to a teleological element in the theory (e.g. in Lycan). There are other things to say about mental states than just their causal role. |
| 7442 | 'Pain' contingently names the state that occupies the causal role of pain [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: On my theory, 'pain' is a contingent name - that is, a name with different denotations in different possible worlds - since in any world, 'pain' names whatever state happens in that world to occupy the causal role definitive of pain. | |
| From: David Lewis (An Argument for the Identity Theory [1966], §II n6) | |
| A reaction: Better to say that 'pain' (like 'sound') is ambiguous. It is indiscriminately used by English-speakers to mean [1] the raw quale that we experience when damaged, and [2] whatever it is that leads to pain behaviour. Maybe frogs have 2 but not 1. |
| 8070 | It would be better to point to failings of character, than to moral wrongness of actions [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: It would be a great improvement if, instead of 'morally wrong', one always named a genus such as 'untruthful', 'unchaste', or 'unjust'. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.183) | |
| A reaction: People are indeed much more struck by the suggestion that they have a weakness of character, rather than that they have just done something wrong. This is Anscombe's first great appeal for a return to virtue as the basis of ethics. |
| 8065 | 'Ought' and 'right' are survivals from earlier ethics, and should be jettisoned [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: The moral sense of 'ought' and of what is right should be jettisoned, if possible, because they are survivals from an earlier conception of ethics, and are only harmful without it. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.175) | |
| A reaction: This is part of a revolutionary proposal to return to virtue theory, and has had a great influence (e.g. on me). Richard Taylor gives a good account of how duty lost its social and religious underpinnings. Our duties now seem to be purely contractual. |
| 8069 | Between Aristotle and us, a Judaeo-Christian legal conception of ethics was developed [Anscombe] |
| Full Idea: Between Aristotle and us came Christianity, with its law conception of ethics, and Christianity derived its ethical notions from the Torah. | |
| From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Modern Moral Philosophy [1958], p.179) | |
| A reaction: While I am a fan of the primacy of the virtues in ethical thinking, I am doubtful about the complete elimination of laws (e.g. by Particularists). The law teaches us the virtues, and reminds us of them (like speed-limit signs). |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |