Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Scientific Explanation', 'The Extended Mind' and 'On Recent German Literature. Fragments'

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7 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis

20947	Thoughts are learnt through words, so language shows the limits and shape of our knowledge [Herder]
	Full Idea: If it is true that we cannot think without thoughts, and that we learn to think through words: then language gives the whole of human knowledge its limits and outline.
	From: Johann Gottfried Herder (On Recent German Literature. Fragments [1767], p.373), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy
	A reaction: Deomonstrating that Frege's famous 1884 'linguistic turn', immortalised by Dummett, was actually the continuation of a long focus on language in German philosophy. Non-verbal animals very obviously think.

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 4. Circularity

9355	One sort of circularity presupposes a premise, the other presupposes a rule being used [Braithwaite, by Devitt]
	Full Idea: An argument is 'premise-circular' if it aims to establish a conclusion that is assumed as a premise of that very argument. An argument is 'rule-circular' if it aims to establish a conclusion that asserts the goodness of the rule used in that argument.
	From: report of R.B. Braithwaite (Scientific Explanation [1953], p.274-8) by Michael Devitt - There is no a Priori §2
	A reaction: Rule circularity is the sort of thing Quine is always objecting to, but such circularities may be unavoidable, and even totally benign. All the good things in life form a mutually supporting team.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs

19743	A notebook counts as memory, if is available to consciousness and guides our actions [Clark/Chalmers]
	Full Idea: Beliefs are partly constituted by features of the environment. ....a notebook plays for one person the same role that memory plays for another. ...The information is reliably there, available to consciousness, and to guide action, just as belief is.
	From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §4)
	A reaction: This is the modern externalist approach to beliefs (along with broad content and external cognition systems). Not quite what we used to mean by beliefs, but we'll get used to it. I believe Plato wrote what it said in his books. Is memory just a role?

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism

6176	A mechanism can count as 'cognitive' whether it is in the brain or outside it [Clark/Chalmers, by Rowlands]
	Full Idea: If the operation of a brain implant inside the brain is a cognitive operation, why should it not count as a cognitive operation when it is outside the brain? There are many mechanisms which would count as cognitive if they were inside the subject.
	From: report of A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.9
	A reaction: This argues for externalism of the vehicle of thought, rather than its content. The idea is that there is no significant difference between remembering a phone number and writing it on a bit of paper. I find it hard to disagree.

19741	If something in the world could equally have been a mental process, it is part of our cognition [Clark/Chalmers]
	Full Idea: If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it done in the head, we would have no hesitation in recognising as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is part of the cognitive process.
	From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §2)
	A reaction: In some sense they are obviously right that our cognitive activities spill out into books, calculators, record-keeping. It seems more like an invitation to shift the meaning of the word 'mind', than a proof that we have got it wrong.

19742	Consciousness may not extend beyond the head, but cognition need not be conscious [Clark/Chalmers]
	Full Idea: Many identify the cognitive with the conscious, and it seems far from plausible that consciousness extends outside the head in these cases. But not every cognitive process, at least on standard usage, is a conscious process.
	From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §3)
	A reaction: This gives you two sorts of externalism about mind to consider. No, three, if you say there is extended conceptual content, then extended cognition processes, then extended consciousness. Depends what you mean by 'consciousness'.

16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self

19744	If a person relies on their notes, those notes are parted of the extended system which is the person [Clark/Chalmers]
	Full Idea: If Otto relies on his notebook, what this comes to is that Otto himself is best regarded as an extended system, a coupling of biological organism and external resources.
	From: A Clark / D Chalmers (The Extended Mind [1998], §5)
	A reaction: You start to get giddy as you read this stuff. If two people constantly share a notebook, they begin to blend into one another. It inclines me towards a more 'animalist' view of the nature of a person or a self.