Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Super Epistolam Pauli Apostoli', 'Emergent Evolution' and 'The Varieties of Reference'

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7 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

16051	Life has a new supervenient relation, which alters its underlying physical events [Morgan,L]
	Full Idea: When some new kind of relatedness is supervenient (say at the level of life), the way in which the physical events which are involved run their course is different in virtue of its presence.
	From: Lloyd Morgan (Emergent Evolution [1923], pp.15-16), quoted by Terence Horgan - From Supervenience to Superdupervenience 1
	A reaction: This is a clear assertion of 'downward causation' at the first introduction of 'supervenience', supporting 'emergentism' about life and mind. That is, the newly-emerged feature has new causal powers that affect the physical system from outside. Wrong!

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception

12580	Experiences have no conceptual content [Evans, by Greco]
	Full Idea: In Evans's work experiences are conceived of as not having a conceptual content at all.
	From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal
	A reaction: I presume it is this view which provoked McDowell's contrary view in 'Mind and World'. I say this is a job for neuroscience, and I struggle to see what philosophical questions hang on the outcome. I think I side with Evans.

7643	We have far fewer colour concepts than we have discriminations of colour [Evans]
	Full Idea: Do we really understand the proposal that we have as many colour concepts as there are shades colour that we can sensibly discriminate?
	From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 7.5)
	A reaction: This is the argument (rejected by McDowell) that experience cannot be conceptual because experience is too rich. We should not confuse lack of concepts with lack of words. I may have a concept of a colour between two shades, but no word for it.

18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content

23794	Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte]
	Full Idea: Evans introduced the idea that there are some representational states, for example perceptual experiences, which have content that is nonconceptual.
	From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980]) by Peter Schulte - Mental Content 3.4
	A reaction: McDowell famously disagree, and whether all experience is inherently conceptualised is a main debate from that period. Hard to see how it could be settled, but I incline to McDowell, because minimal perception hardly counts as 'experience'.

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts

16366	The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans]
	Full Idea: If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'.
	From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3
	A reaction: Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one.

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities

12575	Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them [Evans, by Peacocke]
	Full Idea: Evans's 'Generality Constraint' says that if a thinker is capable of attitudes to the content Fa and possesses the singular concept b, then he is capable of having attitudes to the content Fb.
	From: report of Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], 4.3) by Christopher Peacocke - A Study of Concepts 1.1
	A reaction: So having an attitude becomes the test of whether one possesses a concept. I suppose if one says 'You know you've got a concept when you are capable of thinking about it', that is much the same thing. Sounds fine.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality

1863	If the soul achieves well-being in another life, it doesn't follow that I do [Aquinas]
	Full Idea: Even if soul achieves well-being in another life, that doesn't mean I do or any other human being does.
	From: Thomas Aquinas (Super Epistolam Pauli Apostoli [1272])