9390
|
Logic guides thinking, but it isn't a substitute for it [Rumfitt]
|
|
Full Idea:
Logic is part of a normative theory of thinking, not a substitute for thinking.
|
|
From:
Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.13)
|
|
A reaction:
There is some sort of logicians' dream, going back to Leibniz, of a reasoning engine, which accepts propositions and outputs inferences. I agree with this idea. People who excel at logic are often, it seems to me, modest at philosophy.
|
9389
|
Vague membership of sets is possible if the set is defined by its concept, not its members [Rumfitt]
|
|
Full Idea:
Vagueness in respect of membership is consistency with determinacy of the set's identity, so long as a set's identity is taken to consist, not in its having such-and-such members, but in its being the extension of a concept.
|
|
From:
Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.5)
|
|
A reaction:
I find this view of sets much more appealing than the one that identifies a set with its members. The empty set is less of a problem, as well as non-existents. Logicians prefer the extensional view because it is tidy.
|
5689
|
Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker]
|
|
Full Idea:
Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes.
|
|
From:
report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it.
|
7946
|
The memory criterion has a problem when one thing branches into two things [Williams,B, by Macdonald,C]
|
|
Full Idea:
The memory criterion for personal identity permits 'branching' (where two things can later meet the criteria of persistence of a single earlier thing), which presents it with serious problems.
|
|
From:
report of Bernard Williams (Personal Identity and Individuation [1956]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.4
|
|
A reaction:
Of course, any notion of personal identity would have serious problem if people could branch into two, like fissioning amoeba. If that happened, we probably wouldn't have had a strong notion of personal identity in the first place. See Parfit.
|