44 ideas
| 3811 | Entailment and validity are relations, but inference is a human activity [Searle] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish between entailment and validity as logical relations on the one hand, and inferring as a voluntary human activity on the other. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3822 | Theory involves accepting conclusions, and so is a special case of practical reason [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical reason is typically a matter of accepting a conclusion or hypothesis on the basis of argument or evidence, and is thus a special case of practical reason. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) |
| 3806 | Rationality is built into the intentionality of the mind, and its means of expression [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Constraints of rationality are built into the structure of mind and language, specifically into the structure of intentionality and speech acts. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Int xiv) |
| 3812 | Rationality is the way we coordinate our intentionality [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The constraints of rationality ought to be thought of adverbially; they are a matter of the way in which we coordinate our intentionality. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3809 | If complex logic requires rules, then so does basic logic [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If you think you need a rule to infer q from 'p and (if p then q)', then you would also need a rule to infer p from p. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3810 | In real reasoning semantics gives validity, not syntax [Searle] |
| Full Idea: In real-life reasoning it is the semantic content that guarantees the validity of the inference, not the syntactical rule. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3841 | Users of 'supervenience' blur its causal and constitutive meanings [Searle] |
| Full Idea: I am no fan of the concept of supervenience. Its uncritical use is a sign of philosophical confusion, because the concept oscillates between causal supervenience and constitutive supervenience. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.9 n5) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why you shouldn't assert the supervenience of one thing on another, while saying that you are not sure whether it is causal or constitutive. The confusion seems to me to be in understandings of the causal version. |
| 8361 | What is true used to be possible, but it may no longer be so [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: It is not very natural to say of that which is true that it is also possible. ...What is true was possible - but whether it still is a potency of the world is not certain. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §5) | |
| A reaction: A simple and rather important distinction. Before encountering this, I would certainly have been happy to affirm that the actual is possible, but actually it may not be. The power to create differs from the power to sustain. Could God re-create the world? |
| 3833 | A belief is a commitment to truth [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A belief is a commitment to truth. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4.III) |
| 3837 | We can't understand something as a lie if beliefs aren't commitment to truth [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If I lie and say "It is raining", my utterance is intelligible to me as a lie precisely because I understand that the utterance commits me to the truth of a proposition I do not believe to be true. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.6.II) |
| 3816 | Our beliefs are about things, not propositions (which are the content of the belief) [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The terminology of "propositional attitudes" is confused, because it suggests that a belief is an attitude towards a propositions, …but the proposition is the content, not the object, of my belief. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.2) |
| 3828 | Thinking must involve a self, not just an "it" [Searle] |
| Full Idea: We should not say "It thinks" in preference to "I think". If thinking is an active, voluntary process, there must be a self who thinks. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) |
| 3831 | Reasons can either be facts in the world, or intentional states [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Both reasons and the things they are reasons for can be either facts in the world or intentional states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4.I) | |
| A reaction: One might point out that beliefs, desires and intentions are facts in the world too. Implicit dualism. One can ask, what turns a fact into a reason? |
| 3830 | In the past people had a reason not to smoke, but didn't realise it [Searle] |
| Full Idea: For a long time people had a reason not to smoke cigarettes, without knowing that they had such a reason. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: What does 'had' a reason mean here? If I wish you dead, there is a reason why you should be dead, but you don't 'have' the reason, and never will have. There's probably a reason why I should never have been born. |
| 3832 | Causes (usually events) are not the same as reasons (which are never events) [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Causes are typically events, reasons are never events. You can give a reason by stating a cause, but it does not follow that the reason and the cause are the same thing. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.4.I) | |
| A reaction: This is against Davidson. I'm with Searle here; my having a reason to do something is not the cause of my doing it. I don't, unlike Searle, believe in free will, but doing something for a reason is not just the operation of the reason. |
| 3823 | Being held responsible for past actions makes no sense without personal identity [Searle] |
| Full Idea: I am held responsible now for things that I did in the distant past. But that only makes sense if there is some entity that is both the agent of the action in the past and me now. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) | |
| A reaction: A possible response, of course, is that you are held responsible for your past deeds, but you shouldn't be. The idea that you are the same as when you committed the crime is a convenient fiction for people who desire revenge. Responsibility fades. |
| 3821 | Giving reasons for action requires reference to a self [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The requirement that I state reasons that I acted on requires a reference to the self. …Only for a self can something be a reason for an action. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) | |
| A reaction: Why can't we just say that this reason, given this desire and this belief, led to this action, and never mention the self? Admittedly leaving out 'I' is an odd circumlocution, but I don't find this particular argument very convincing. |
| 3824 | A 'self' must be capable of conscious reasonings about action [Searle] |
| Full Idea: In order to be a self the entity that acts as an agent must also be capable of conscious reasoning about its actions. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VIII) | |
| A reaction: I can't accept this all-or-nothing account. A chimpanzee is some sort of 'agent', and there are bad chimpanzees you wouldn't want in your colony. Why does Searle want to cut us off in some special compound where our actions are totally different? |
| 3834 | An intentional, acting, rational being must have a self [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Selfhood in my sense comes for free once you have a conscious intentional being capable of engaging in free actions on the basis of reasons. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.II) | |
| A reaction: The concept of an 'action' is probably the thing that most clearly needs a self, because it implies co-ordination and purpose, and there must be some item which benefits. Personally I think you can drop 'free actions' and still have a self. |
| 3825 | Action requires a self, even though perception doesn't [Searle] |
| Full Idea: It is a formal requirement on rational action that there must be a self who acts, in a way that it is not a formal requirement on perception that there be an agent or a self who perceives. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this persuasive. I don't see how we can rule out a priori the possibility of a set of desires and reasons within an organism which generate an action, without any intervening 'self' to add something. Ockham's Razor. |
| 3829 | Selfs are conscious, enduring, reasonable, active, free, and responsible [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A self is conscious, persists through time, operates with reasons, carries out free actions, and is responsible. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.X) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would substitute 'makes decisions' for 'carries out free actions', but otherwise I agree, though he seems to miss a key aspect, which is that the self is in charge of the mind, and directs its focus and co-ordinates its inputs and outputs. |
| 3826 | A self must at least be capable of consciousness [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The first condition on the self is that it should be capable of consciousness. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a stipulative definition. It raises the question of whether it is possible that a lizard (say) is not actually conscious, but has some sort of propriotreptic awareness, and a 'central controller' for its decision-making. |
| 3827 | The self is neither an experience nor a thing experienced [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The self is not an experience, nor is it an object that is experienced. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.IX) | |
| A reaction: A nice dichotomy, that draws attention to the unique position of the self. Thanks to Descartes for focusing our attention on it. Personally I would say that the self is an object, which cannot be experienced by itself, but can be inferred by others. |
| 3820 | The bundle must also have agency in order to act, and a self to act rationally [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Agency must be added to the bundle to account for how embodied bundles engage in free actions, and selfhood must be added to account for how agents can act rationally. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.VII) | |
| A reaction: I don't buy much of this, but I am inclined to say that a will must be added to the bundle to explain why it acts consistently and coherently. It is certainly ridiculous to rest with the picture of a person as a completely unstructured bundle. |
| 3817 | Free will is most obvious when we choose between several reasons for an action [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The most dramatic manifestation of the free will gap is that when one has several reasons for performing an action, one may act on only one of them; one may select which reason one acts on. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.II) |
| 3808 | Rational decision making presupposes free will [Searle] |
| Full Idea: In order to engage in rational decision making we have to presuppose free will. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3818 | We freely decide whether to make a reason for action effective [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Where free rational action is concerned, all effective reasons are made effective by the agent. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.3.II) |
| 3814 | Preferences can result from deliberation, not just precede it [Searle] |
| Full Idea: A well-ordered set of preferences is typically the result of successful deliberation, and is not its precondition. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3840 | We don't accept practical reasoning if the conclusion is unpalatable [Searle] |
| Full Idea: If I desire to get rid of my flu symptoms, and believe the only way to do it is death, I am committed to desiring my death. …there is no plausible logic of practical reason. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.8.II) |
| 3815 | The essence of humanity is desire-independent reasons for action [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The single greatest difference between humans and other animals as far as rationality is concerned is our ability to create, recognise and act on desire-independent reasons for action. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 3839 | Only an internal reason can actually motivate the agent to act [Searle] |
| Full Idea: Only an internal reason can actually motivate the agent to act. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.6 App) |
| 3835 | If it is true, you ought to believe it [Searle] |
| Full Idea: To say that something is true is already to say that you ought to believe it. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.II) | |
| A reaction: I'm sure what Einstein said is true, but I don't understand it. The truth is the thought of how things actually are, but why should I not prefer my private fantasies? I see the point, though. |
| 3836 | If this is a man, you ought to accept similar things as men [Searle] |
| Full Idea: From the fact that an object is truly described as "a man", it follows that you ought to accept relevantly similar objects as men. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.5.IV) | |
| A reaction: 'Similar' rather begs the question. Common speech distinguishes sharply between a man and a 'real man'. You only accept them as men if you see them as men, not as similar to something else. Interesting. |
| 3838 | Promises hold because I give myself a reason, not because it is an institution [Searle] |
| Full Idea: The obligation to keep a promise does not derive from the institution of promising, ..but from the fact that in promising I freely and voluntarily create a reason for myself. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.6.IV) |
| 3813 | 'Ought' implies that there is a reason to do something [Searle] |
| Full Idea: To say that someone 'ought' to do something is to imply that there is a reason for him to do it. | |
| From: John Searle (Rationality in Action [2001], Ch.1.II) |
| 23104 | Dworkin believed we should promote equality, to increase autonomy [Dworkin, by Kekes] |
| Full Idea: Egalitarians believe that most often it is by promoting equality that autonomy is increased; this is the egalitarianism of such liberals as Ronald Dworkin. | |
| From: report of Ronald Dworkin (Taking Rights Seriously [1977]) by John Kekes - Against Liberalism 05.1 | |
| A reaction: Not my idea of equality. The whole point is to ascribe reasonable equality to everyone, including those with a limited capacity for autonomy. Equality is a consequence of universal respect. |
| 23257 | We can treat people as equals, or actually treat them equally [Dworkin, by Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Dworkin distinguishes between treating people as equals, that is, 'with equal concern and respect', and treating them equally. This latter can be unjust. | |
| From: report of Ronald Dworkin (Taking Rights Seriously [1977]) by A.C. Grayling - The Good State 2 | |
| A reaction: The big difference I see between them is that the first is mere words, and the second is actions. Cf. 'thoughts and prayers' after US school shootings. How about equal entitlements, all things being equal? |
| 18621 | Treating people as equals is the one basic value of all plausible political theories [Dworkin, by Kymlicka] |
| Full Idea: Dworkin suggests that every plausible political theory has the same ultimate value, which is equality - in the more abstract and fundamental sense of treating people 'as equals'. | |
| From: report of Ronald Dworkin (Taking Rights Seriously [1977], 179-83) by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn) | |
| A reaction: I associate this idea with Kant (who says they are equal by virtue of their rationality), so that's a pretty influential idea. I would associate the main challenge to this with Nietzsche. |
| 8363 | p is a cause and q an effect (not vice versa) if manipulations of p change q [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: What makes p a cause-factor relative to the effect-factor q (rather than vice versa) is the fact that by manipulating p, producing changes in it 'at will', we could bring about changes in q. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §8) | |
| A reaction: As a solution to the direction-of-causation problem, I suspect that this proposal is begging the question. Will a causal explanation be offered of the action of manipulation? If he mistook his manipulation for a cause when it is actually an effect... |
| 8364 | We can imagine controlling floods by controlling rain, but not vice versa [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: Given our present knowledge of the laws of nature, we can imagine ways of controlling floods by controlling rainfall, but not the other way round. That is should be so, however, is contingent. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §8) | |
| A reaction: Despite my objections to Idea 8363, this is a good example. It won't establish the metaphysics of the direction of causation, though, because God might control rainfall by controlling floods. Maybe causation is more like a motorway pile-up than dominoes. |
| 8366 | The very notion of a cause depends on agency and action [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: There is an implicit dependence of the very notion of a cause on a concept of agency and action. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §10) | |
| A reaction: This is because he thinks experimental intervention is the key to the concept of causation (see Ideas 8362 and 8363). Others go further, and say that the concept of causation arises from subjective experience of performing actions. I quite like that. |
| 8362 | We give regularities a causal character by subjecting them to experiment [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: What confers on observed regularities the character of causal or nomic connections is the possibility of subjecting cause-factors to experimental test by interfering with the 'natural' course of events. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §7) | |
| A reaction: This is von Wright's distinctive proposal, making causation a feature of the culture of science, rather than of ordinary life. But see Idea 2461. Causation is becoming too epistemological for my taste. Either it is a feature of reality, or forget it. |
| 8360 | We must further analyse conditions for causation, into quantifiers or modal concepts [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: We may be able to analyse causation into conditionship relations between events or states of affairs, ...but conditions cannot be regarded as logical primitives, ... and must be analysed into quantifiers, or modal concepts. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §2) | |
| A reaction: [very compressed] A nice illustration of the aim of analytical philosophy - to analyse the elements of reality down to logical primitives. This is the dream of Descartes and Leibniz, continued by Russell and co. Do we still have this aspiration? |
| 8365 | Some laws are causal (Ohm's Law), but others are conceptual principles (conservation of energy) [Wright,GHv] |
| Full Idea: Not all laws are causal 'experimentalist' laws, such as those for falling bodies, or the Gas Law, or Ohm's Law. Some are more like conceptual principles, giving a frame of reference, such as inertia, or conservation of energy, or the law of entropy. | |
| From: G.H. von Wright (Logic and Epistemology of Causal Relations [1973], §9) | |
| A reaction: An interesting and important distinction, whenever one is exploring the links between theories of causation and of laws of nature. If one wished to attack the whole concept of 'laws of nature', this might be a good place to start. |