Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Psychophysical Nexus', 'The Nature of Universals and Propositions' and 'What is innate and why'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
4242 Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel]
     Full Idea: Pure, unexplained supervenience is never a solution to a problem but a sign that there is something fundamental we don't know.
     From: Thomas Nagel (The Psychophysical Nexus [2000], §III)
     A reaction: This seems right. It is not a theory or an explanation, merely the observation of a correlation which will require explanation. Why are they correlated?
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
8511 Stout first explicitly proposed that properties and relations are particulars [Stout,GF, by Campbell,K]
     Full Idea: In modern times, it was G.F. Stout who first explicitly made the proposal that properties and relations are as particular as the substances that they qualify.
     From: report of G.F. Stout (The Nature of Universals and Propositions [1923]) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §1
     A reaction: Note that relations will have to be tropes, as well as properties. Williams wants tropes to be parts of objects, but that will be tricky with relations. If you place two objects on a table, how does the 'to the left of' trope come into existence?
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
2605 If everything uses mentalese, ALL concepts must be innate! [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Fodor concludes that every predicate that a brain could learn to use must have a translation into the computer language of that brain. So no "new" concepts can be acquired: all concepts are innate!
     From: Hilary Putnam (What is innate and why [1980], p.407)
     A reaction: Some misunderstanding, surely? No one could be so daft as to think that everyone has an innate idea of an iPod. More basic innate building blocks for thought are quite plausible.
2606 No machine language can express generalisations [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Computers have a built-in language, but not a language that contains quantifiers (that is, the words "all" and "some"). …So generalizations (containing "all") cannot ever be stated in machine language.
     From: Hilary Putnam (What is innate and why [1980], p.408)
     A reaction: Computers are too sophisticated to need quantification (which is crude). Computers can work with very precise and complex specifications of the domain of a given variable.