106 ideas
| 19648 | Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The central notion of philosophy since Kant is 'correlation' - that we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux's charge is that philosophy has thereby completely failed to grasp the scientific revolution, which has used mathematics to make objectivity possible. Quine and Putnam would be good examples of what he has in mind. |
| 19674 | The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The Copernican Revolution is not so much the decentring of observers in the solar system, but (by the mathematizing of nature) the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: In other words, I take it, the Copernican Revolution was the discovery of objectivity. That is a very nice addition to my History of Ideas collection. |
| 19657 | In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The major shift that has occurred in the conception of thought from Kant's time to ours is from the unknowability of the thing-in-itself to its unthinkability. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux is making the case that philosophy is alienating us more and more from the triumphant realism of the scientific revolution. He says thinking has split from being. He's right. Modern American pragmatists are the worst (not Peirce!). |
| 19675 | Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Ever since Kant, to think science as a philosopher has been to claim that science harbours a meaning other than the one delivered by science itself. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point is that science discovered objectivity (via the mathematising of nature), and Kant utterly rejected objectivity, by enmeshing the human mind in every possible scientific claim. This makes Meillassoux and I very cross. |
| 19649 | Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Kant, objectivity is no longer defined with reference to the object in itself, but rather with reference to the possible universality of an objective statement. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux disapproves of this, as a betrayal by philosophers of the scientific revolution, which gave us true objectivity (e.g. about how the world was before humanity). |
| 19666 | If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No! |
| 19656 | Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature. |
| 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) |
| 13070 | If definitions must be general, and general terms can't individuate, then Socrates can't be defined [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Socrates has no definition if definitions by their nature must be in purely general terms, and if no purely general terms can succeed in uniquely singling out this signated matter. | |
| From: report of Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], 23) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 1.1.2 | |
| A reaction: There seem to be two models. That general terms actually individuate the matter of Socrates, or that they cross-reference to (so to speak) define Socrates 'by elimination', as the only individual that fits. But the latter is a poor definition. |
| 11197 | The definitions expressing identity are used to sort things [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: What sorts things into their proper genus and species are the definitions that express what they are. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.92) | |
| A reaction: This is straight from Aristotle, though Aristotle's view is a little more complex, I think. If the definitions 'express what they are', then definitions seem to specify the essence. |
| 19663 | We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: For contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that para-consistent logic might permit isolated contradictions (as true) within a system, but it is only contradiction across the system (inconsistencies) which make the system untenable. |
| 19664 | Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics were only developed in order to prevent computers, such as expert medical systems, from deducing anything whatsoever from contradictory data, because of the principle of 'ex falso quodlibet'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) |
| 19665 | Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics are only ever dealing with contradictions inherent in statements about the world, never with the real contradictions in the world. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: Thank goodness for that! I can accept that someone in a doorway is both in the room and not in the room, but not that they are existing in a real state of contradiction. I fear that a few daft people embrace the logic as confirming contradictory reality. |
| 19677 | What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must establish the thesis that what is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The truth of this thesis would permanently establish mathematics as the only possible language of science. Personally I have no idea how you could prove or assess such a thesis. It is a lovely speculation, though. 'The structure of the possible' (p,127) |
| 19659 | The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We maintain that it is absolutely necessary that every entity might not exist. ...The absolute is the absolute impossibility of a necessary being. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of his book. The usual candidates for necessary existence are God, and mathematical objects. I am inclined to agree with Meillassoux. |
| 11195 | If affirmative propositions express being, we affirm about what is absent [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: If being is what makes propositions true, then anything we can express in an affirmative proposition, however unreal, is said to be; so lacks and absences are, since we say that absences are opposed to presences, and blindness exists in an eye. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.92) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 11194 for the alternative Aristotelian approach to being, according to categories. Do absences and lacks have real essences, or causal properties? The absence of the sentry may cause the loss of the city. |
| 19662 | It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that there be something rather than nothing because it is necessarily contingent that there is something rather than something else. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The great charm of metaphysics is the array of serious answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You'll need to read Meillassoux's book to understand this one. |
| 19654 | We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which 'to be is to be a correlate'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: He blames Kant for this pernicious idea, which has driven philosophy away from realist science, when it should be supporting and joining it. As a realist I agree, and find Meillassoux very illuminating on the subject. |
| 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. |
| 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? |
| 11201 | Properties have an incomplete essence, with definitions referring to their subject [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Incidental properties have an incomplete essence, and need to refer in their definitions to their subject, lying outside their own genus. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.93) | |
| A reaction: These are 'incidental' properties, but it is a nice question whether properties have essences. Presumably they must have if they are universals, or platonic Forms. The notion of being 'strong' can be defined without specific examples. |
| 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) |
| 11205 | If the form of 'human' contains 'many', Socrates isn't human; if it contains 'one', Socrates is Plato [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: If (in the Platonic view) manyness was contained in humanness it could never be one as it is in Socrates, and if oneness was part of its definition then Socrates would be Plato and the nature couldn't be realised more than once. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.100) | |
| A reaction: I suppose the reply is that since we are trying to explain one-over-many, then this unusual combination of both manyness and oneness is precisely what distinguishes forms from other ideas. |
| 13090 | The principle of diversity for corporeal substances is their matter [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: In the view of Aquinas, while substantial form is the ultimate ground of identity and difference of angels, it is matter that provides a principle of diversity in the case of corporeal substances. | |
| From: report of Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 5.2.3 | |
| A reaction: This is at least as good a proposal as their apatial location. There is more chance of reidentifying matter than of precisely reidentifying a spatial location. Two indistinguishable spheres remain the classic problem case (of Max Black, Idea 10195) |
| 11202 | It is by having essence that things exist [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: It is by having essence that things exist. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.94) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 11199, which gives a fuller picture. This idea seems to suggest essence as the cause of existence, which sounds wrong. Perhaps essence is a necessary condition of existence, but it is necessary that nothing indeterminate can exist? |
| 11203 | Specific individual essence is defined by material, and generic essence is defined by form [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Specific essence differs from generic essence by being demarcated: individuals are demarcated within species by dimensionally defined material, but species within genus by a defining differentiation taken from the form. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.95) | |
| A reaction: It clearly won't be enough to define an individual just to define its material and its shape. The material might also be essential to the genus, as when defining fire. Probably not very helpful. |
| 11200 | The definition of a physical object must include the material as well as the form [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Form alone cannot be a composite substance's essence. For a thing's essence is expressed by its definition, and unless the definition of a physical substance included both form and material, the definition wouldn't differ from mathematical objects. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.93) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of thoroughly sensible remark that you only get from the greatest philosophers. Minor philosophers fall in love with things like forms, and then try to use them to explain everything. |
| 11196 | Essence is something in common between the natures which sort things into categories [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Since being as belonging to a category expresses the 'isness' of things, and belongs to all ten Aristotelian categories, essence must be something all the natures that sort different beings into genera and species have in common. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.92) | |
| A reaction: I like this because it is the essence which does the sorting, not the sorting which defines the essence (which seems to me to be a deep and widespread confusion). |
| 11208 | A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: A simple substance is its own essence. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.103) | |
| A reaction: Aquinas takes complex substances to have their essences in various ways, but this thought is the basis of all essence. Presumably the Greek word 'ousia' names the key ingredient. |
| 19660 | Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: My term 'precariousness' designates a possibility of not-being which must eventually be realised. By contrast, absolute contingency designates a pure possibility; one which may never be realised. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: I thoroughly approve of this distinction, because I have often enountered the assumption that all contingency is precariousness, and I have never seen why that should be so. In Aquinas's Third Way, for example. The 6 on a die may never come up. |
| 19671 | The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of chance is only conceivable on condition that there are unalterable physical laws. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Laws might be contingent, even though they never alter. Chance in horse racing relies on the stability of whole institution of horse racing. |
| 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) |
| 19651 | Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'. |
| 19647 | The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction. |
| 19652 | How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: How is mathematical discourse able to describe a reality where humanity is absent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the prehistoric world. He takes this to be a key question about the laws of nature. We extrapolate mathematically from the experienced world, relying on the stability of the laws. Must they be necessary to be stable? No, it seems. |
| 19668 | Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Hume's question can be formulated as follows: can we demonstrate that the experimental science which is possible today will still be possible tomorrow? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Could there be deep universal changes going on in nature which science could never, even in principle, detect? |
| 11198 | Definition of essence makes things understandable [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: It is definition of essence that makes things understandable. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.92) | |
| A reaction: The aim of philosophy is understanding, which is achieved by successful explanation. I totally agree with this Aristotelian view, so neatly summarised by Aquinas. |
| 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. |
| 19650 | The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux treats this as part of the Kantian Disaster, which made an accurate account of the scientific revolution impossible for philosophers. Kant's ego seems to have primarily an epistemological role. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 11206 | The mind constructs complete attributions, based on the unified elements of the real world [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Attribution is something mind brings to completion by constructing propositional connections and disconnections, basing itself on real-world unity possessed by the things being attributed to one another. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.102) | |
| A reaction: This compromise story seems to me to be exactly right. I take it that we respond to the real joints of nature, but using thought and language which is riddled with convention. |
| 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. |
| 11207 | A cause can exist without its effect, but the effect cannot exist without its cause [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: When things are so related that one causes the other to exist, the cause can exist without what it causes but not vice versa. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.103) | |
| A reaction: This is open to question, if causes are supposed to be sufficient for effects. Presumably Aquinas would support the view that if the cause had not been, the effect would not have happened. But the current idea indicates the priority relation. |
| 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) |
| 19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
| 19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
| 19653 | The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Descartes conceives of God as existing necessarily, whether I exist to think of him or not, Descartes assures me of a possible access to an absolute reality - a Great Outdoors that is not a correlate of my thought. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the ontological argument should be seen as part of the scientific revolution, and not an anomaly within it. Interesting. |
| 19658 | Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Once the absolute has become unthinkable, even atheism, which also targets God's inexistence in the manner of an absolute, is reduced to a mere belief, and hence to a religion, albeit of the nihilist kind. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim. Rather hard to agree or disagree, though the idea that atheism must qualify as a religion seems odd. If it is unqualified it does have the grand quality of a religion, but if it is fallibilist it just seems like an attitude. |