Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reply to Fourth Objections', 'Psychology from an empirical standpoint' and 'Causation and the Flow of Energy'

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5 ideas

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality

3364	All mental phenomena contain an object [Brentano]
	Full Idea: Every mental phenomenon contains something as object within itself.
	From: Franz Brentano (Psychology from an empirical standpoint [1874], p. 88), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.21
	A reaction: This gives rise to the slogan that 'intentionality is the mark of the mental', which notoriously seems to miss out the phenomenal aspect of mental life. We note now, though, that even emotions have objects.

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality

3225	Mental unity suggests that qualia and intentionality must connect [Brentano, by Rey]
	Full Idea: Brentano's thesis is that all mental phenomena are intentional i.e. representational. Support for this view is that assimilating phenomenal experience to attitudes we explain the essential unity of the mind.
	From: report of Franz Brentano (Psychology from an empirical standpoint [1874]) by Georges Rey - Contemporary Philosophy of Mind 11.5
	A reaction: Unifying intentionality and qualia in a single theory looks like a good move, but which one has priority? Evolutionary theory says priority goes to whatever produces behaviour. My intuition is that qualia are more basic - in tiny insects, say.

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 6. Conceptual Dualism

3643	The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes]
	Full Idea: The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body.
	From: René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225)
	A reaction: A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation

8326	Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
	Full Idea: Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
	A reaction: Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.

10379	Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
	A reaction: David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.