Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Classical Cosmology (frags)', 'Intending' and 'Capital Vol. 3'

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4 ideas

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions

20076	An intending is a judgement that the action is desirable [Davidson]
	Full Idea: We can identify an intentional action ...with an all-out conditional judgement that the action is desirable. ...In the case of pure intending, I now suggest that the intention simply is an all-out judgement.
	From: Donald Davidson (Intending [1978], p.99), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's'
	A reaction: 'Pure' intending seems to be what Stout calls 'prior' intending, which is clearer. This still strikes me as obviously false. I judge that it is desirable that I make a cup of coffee, but secretly I'm hoping someone else will make it for me.

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions

20024	Davidson gave up reductive accounts of intention, and said it was a primitive [Davidson, by Wilson/Schpall]
	Full Idea: Later Davidson dropped his reductive treatment of intentions (in terms of 'pro-attitudes' and other beliefs), and accepted that intentions are irreducible, and distinct from pro-attitudes.
	From: report of Donald Davidson (Intending [1978]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
	A reaction: Only a philosopher would say that intentions cannot be reduced to something else. Since I have a very physicalist view of the mind, I incline to reduce them to powers and dispositions of physical matter.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism

21996	Freedom only comes when labour is no longer necessary [Marx]
	Full Idea: The realm of freedom actually begins only where labour which is determined by necessity and mundane considerations ceases.
	From: Karl Marx (Capital Vol. 3 [1873], p.496), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 8
	A reaction: This is a bit discouraging fo idealistic dreamers. Modern political thought needs an ecological dimension to this problem. If society always needs a fair degree of labour, there must be a way to maximise freedom in that context.

27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology

5994	Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]
	Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning.
	From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out.