12 ideas
| 7068 | If infatuation with science leads to bad scientism, its rejection leads to obscurantism [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: If what is mistaken in much contemporary philosophy is its infatuation with science, which leads to scientism, then the equally mistaken rejection of science leads to obscurantism. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Clearly a balance has to be struck. I take philosophy to be a quite separate discipline from science, but it is crucial that philosophy respects the physical facts, and scientists are the experts there. Scientists are philosophers' most valued servants. |
| 7075 | To meet the division in our life, try the Subject, Nature, Spirit, Will, Power, Praxis, Unconscious, or Being [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Against the Kantian division of a priori and empirical, Fichte offered activity of the subject, Schelling offered natural force, Hegel offered Spirit, Schopenhauer the Will, Nietzsche power, Marx praxis, Freud the unconscious, and Heidegger offered Being. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001]) | |
| A reaction: The whole of Continental Philosophy summarised in a sentence. Fichte and Schopenhauer seem to point to existentialism, Schelling gives evolutionary teleology, Marx abandons philosophy, the others are up the creek. |
| 7069 | The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: French philosophy since the 1930s might be described as a series of returns: to Hegel (in Kojčve and early Sartre), to Nietzsche (in Foucault and Deleuze), or to Marx (in Althusser). | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting map. The question might be why they return to those three, rather than (say) Hume or Leibniz. If the choice of which one you return to a matter of 'taste' (as Nietzsche would have it)? |
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
| 2848 | Two people might agree in their emotional moral attitude while disagreeing in their judgement [Brink] |
| Full Idea: Critics of emotivism claim that moral agreement need not track agreement in attitude; moralists with the same attitude can disagree in their views, and they can hold the same view while disagreeing in attitude. | |
| From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224) | |
| A reaction: Thus two racists can disagree about how racists should behave. Sounds like a good criticism. |
| 2851 | Emotivists find it hard to analyse assertions of moral principles, rather than actual judgements [Brink] |
| Full Idea: It is hard for the emotivist to give an analysis of the occurrence of moral ideas in unasserted contexts, such as "IF he did wrong, then he should be punished". | |
| From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'Frege-Geach Problem'. |
| 2853 | Emotivists claim to explain moral motivation by basing morality on non-cognitive attitudes [Brink] |
| Full Idea: By stressing the intimate connection between moral judgements and the agent's non-cognitive attitudes, emotivists claim to capture the motivational properties of moral judgement. | |
| From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.223) | |
| A reaction: The same claim is made by contractarians, who start from our universal self-interest. Emotivists also nicely capture the motivation properties of immoral judgements. |
| 2852 | Emotivists tend to favour a redundancy theory of truth, making moral judgement meaningless [Brink] |
| Full Idea: If you want to recognise the truth of some moral judgements, perhaps to make room for the possibility of moral mistakes, then one may not be satisfied with the emotivists' tendency to appeal to the redundancy theory of truth. | |
| From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224) | |
| A reaction: Probably thinking of Simon Blackburn. People who adopt a redundancy view of truth for semantics are left floundering when discussing what is true in the rest of philosophy. |
| 2849 | Emotivism implies relativism about moral meanings, but critics say disagreements are about moral reference [Brink] |
| Full Idea: Emotivism suggests that different feelings lead to different individual meanings for moral terms, but critics say that meanings are the same, and disagreement is about the extension (range of reference) of the terms. | |
| From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224) | |
| A reaction: It's hard to see how 'ought to p' could have quite different meanings for an emotivist and (say) a theistic moralist. 'Ought' is an obvious and simple word. Good criticism. |
| 2850 | How can emotivists explain someone who recognises morality but is indifferent to it? [Brink] |
| Full Idea: It is not clear how the emotivist can accommodate the amoralist - one who recognises moral requirements but is indifferent to them. | |
| From: David O. Brink (Emotivism [1995], p.224) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche recognised current morals, but was indifferent to them. It is hard to imagine, though, an amoralist who lacked all the feelings which imply morality. |
| 7067 | Food first, then ethics [Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Food first, then ethics. | |
| From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], 8857) | |
| A reaction: This is not a dismissal of philosophy, but a key fact which ethical philosophers must face up to. See Mr Doolittle's speech in Shaw's 'Pygmalion. It connects to the debate c.1610 about whether one is entitled to grab someone's plank to avoid drowning. |