9 ideas
| 18351 | Propositions are made true, in virtue of something which explains its truth [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If a proposition is 'made' true, it has to be true 'in virtue of' something, meaning a relationship of metaphysical explanation. Thus a true proposition must have truth conferred on it in some way that explains how it gets to be true. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.202) | |
| A reaction: It is good to ask what we mean by 'makes'. I like essentialist explanations, but this may be misplaced. Observing that y makes x true seems to be rather less than actually explaining how it does it. What would such explanations look like? |
| 18353 | Modes are beings that are related both to substances and to universals [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Modes are real beings that stand in non-contingent formal ontological relations both to individual substances and to immanent universals. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.212) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I pass it on. 'Modes' seem to invite the Razor, if we already have substances and universals. I am no clear about 'instantiation' because I now have the word 'mode' to play with. |
| 18352 | Tropes have existence independently of any entities [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Pure trope theorists must apparently hold that each trope has its identity underivatively, not that it depends for it on or owes it to other entities of any sort. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.207) | |
| A reaction: Lowe defends dependent 'modes' of things, against independent 'tropes'. Good, but he then has to say what the thing is (a modeless 'substance'?), because it can't just be a bundle of modes or tropes. |
| 3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
| Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
| A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
| 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. |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
| A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
| From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
| A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |
| 21798 | To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith' | |
| A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea. |
| 21797 | Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel] |
| Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity. | |
| From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death' | |
| A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it? |