10 ideas
13857 | Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington] |
Full Idea: How likely is a fair die landing on an even number to land six? My approach is, assume an even number, so three possibilities, one a six, so 'one third'; the truth-functional approach is it's true if it is not-even or six, so 'two-thirds'. | |
From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 3) | |
A reaction: The point is that in the truth-functional approach, if the die lands not-even, then the conditional comes out as true, when she says it should be irrelevant. She seems to be right about this. |
13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
Full Idea: The mistake philosophers have made, in trying to understand the conditional, is to assume that its function is to make a statement about how the world is (or how other possible worlds are related to it), true or false, as the case may be. | |
From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1) | |
A reaction: 'If pigs could fly we would never catch them' may not be about the world, but 'if you press this switch the light comes on' seems to be. Actually even the first one is about the world. I've an inkling that Edgington is wrong about this. Powers! |
13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington] |
Full Idea: A conditional does not have truth conditions. | |
From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1) |
13859 | X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington] |
Full Idea: X believes that if A, B, to the extent that he judges that A & B is nearly as likely as A, or (roughly equivalently) to the extent that he judges A & B to be more likely than A & ¬B. | |
From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 5) | |
A reaction: This is a formal statement of her theory of conditionals. |
13854 | Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington] |
Full Idea: It is often necessary to suppose (or assume) that some epistemic possibility is true, and to consider what else would be the case, or would be likely to be the case, given this supposition. The conditional expresses the outcome of such thought processes. | |
From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1) | |
A reaction: This is the basic Edgington view. It seems to involve an active thought process, and imagination, rather than being the static semantic relations offered by possible worlds analyses. True conditionals state relationships in the world. |
2599 | Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor] |
Full Idea: The avoidance of epiphenomenalism requires making it plausible that intentional properties can meet sufficient conditions for causal responsibility. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.154) | |
A reaction: A wordy way of saying we either have epiphenomenalism, or the mind had better do something - and a good theory will show how. The biggest problem of the mind may not be Chalmer's Hard Question (qualia), but how thought-contents cause things. |
2597 | Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor] |
Full Idea: I argue that (contrary to the doctrine called "anomalous monism") there is no good reason to doubt that there are intentional causal laws. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.151) | |
A reaction: I certainly can't see a good argument, in Davidson or anywhere else, to demonstrate their impossibility. Give the complexity of the brain, they would be like the 'laws' for weather or geology. |
2598 | Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor] |
Full Idea: If one of your reasons for doubting that believing-that-P is a physical property is that believing is multiply realizable, then you have the same reason for doubting that being an airfoil (or a mountain) counts as a physical property. | |
From: Jerry A. Fodor (Making Mind Matter More [1989], p.153) | |
A reaction: This merely points out that functionalism is not incompatible with physicalism, which must be right. |
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. |