Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Reply to 'Rorarius' 2nd ed' and 'Theological and other works'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

7 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers

15312	We get the idea of power by abstracting from ropes, magnets and electric shocks [Priestley]
	Full Idea: A rope sustains weight, a magnet attracts iron, a charged electrical jar gives a shock, and from these and other similar observations, we get the idea of power, universally and abstractly considered.
	From: Joseph Priestley (Theological and other works [1790], p.191), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B
	A reaction: I agree with this, in that we appear to be observing powers directly, and are not observing something which can then be reduced to non-powers. Nature just can't be a set of inert structures, with forces 'imposed' on them.

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind

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.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection

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.

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions

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'.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

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.

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter

15311	Attraction or repulsion are not imparted to matter, but actually constitute it [Priestley]
	Full Idea: Attraction or repulsion appear to me not to be properly what is imparted to matter, but what really makes it what it is, in so much that, without it, it would be nothing at all.
	From: Joseph Priestley (Theological and other works [1790], p.237), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B
	A reaction: This is music to the ears of anyone who thinks that powers are the fundamentals of nature (like me).

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / b. Relative time

19384	Space and time are the order of all possibilities, and don't just relate to what is actual [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Space and time taken together constitute the order of possibilities of the one entire universe, so that these orders relate not only to what actually is, but also to anything that could be put in its place.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Reply to 'Rorarius' 2nd ed [1702], GP iv 568), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Space and Time'
	A reaction: A very nice idea. Rather like the 'space of reasons', where all rational thought must exist, space and time are the 'space of existence and action'. Their concepts involve more than relations between what actually exists.