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All the ideas for 'Essays on Intellectual Powers: Conception', 'The Concept of a Person' and 'works'

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12 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
The values of variables can't determine existence, because they are just expressions [Ryle, by Quine]
     Full Idea: Ryle objected somewhere to my dictum that 'to be is to be the value of a variable', arguing that the values of variables are expressions, and hence that my dictum repudiates all things except expressions.
     From: report of Gilbert Ryle (works [1950]) by Willard Quine - Reply to Professor Marcus p.183
     A reaction: I have a lot of sympathy with Ryle's view, and I associate it with the peculiar Millian view that we can somehow replace a name in a sentence with the actual physical object. Objects can't be parts of sentences - and maybe they can't be 'values'.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
Objects have an essential constitution, producing its qualities, which we are too ignorant to define [Reid]
     Full Idea: Individuals and objects have a real essence, or constitution of nature, from which all their qualities flow: but this essence our faculties do not comprehend. They are therefore incapable of definition.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
     A reaction: Aha - he's one of us! I prefer the phrase 'essential nature' of an object, which is understood, I think, by everyone. I especially like the last bit, directed at those who mistakenly think that Aristotle identified the essence with the definition.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible
Impossibilites are easily conceived in mathematics and geometry [Reid, by Molnar]
     Full Idea: Reid pointed out how easily conceivable mathematical and geometric impossibilities are.
     From: report of Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], IV.III) by George Molnar - Powers 11.3
     A reaction: The defence would be that you have to really really conceive them, and the only way the impossible can be conceived is by blurring it at the crucial point, or by claiming to conceive more than you actually can
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / b. Scepticism of other minds
Maybe induction could never prove the existence of something unobservable [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Some people hold that no inductive argument can give us any reason to believe in the existence of something which could not even in principle be observed.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §I)
     A reaction: I see nothing illogical in inferring the existence of a poltergeist from the recurrent flight of objects around my lounge. Only an excessive empiricism (which used to afflict Ayer) could lead to this claim.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 1. Self and Consciousness
Consciousness must involve a subject, and only bodies identify subjects [Ayer]
     Full Idea: It may not make sense to talk of states of consciousness except as the experiences of some conscious subject; and it may well be that this conscious subject can not be identified except by reference to his body.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)
     A reaction: It strikes me that Ayer deserves more credit as a pioneer of this view. It tracks back to what may turn out to be the key difficulty for Descartes - how do you individuate a mental substance? I may identify me, but how do I identify you?
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 7. Self and Body / a. Self needs body
People own conscious states because they are causally related to the identifying body [Ayer]
     Full Idea: I think personal identity depends on the identity of the body, and that a person's ownership of states of consciousness consists in their standing in a special causal relation to the body by which he is identified.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)
     A reaction: I think with this is right, with the slight reservation that Ayer talks as if there were two things which have a causal relationship, implying that the link is contingent. Better to think of the whole thing as a single causal network.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
We identify experiences by their owners, so we can't define owners by their experiences [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Normally we identify experiences in terms of the persons whose experiences they are; but this will lead to a vicious circle if persons themselves are to be analysed in terms of their experiences.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §I)
     A reaction: This (from a leading empiricist) is a nice basic challenge to all empiricist accounts of personal identity. One might respond my saying that the circle is not vicious. There are two interlinked concepts (experience and persons), like day and night.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
Memory is the best proposal as what unites bundles of experiences [Ayer]
     Full Idea: The most promising suggestion is that the bundles are tied together by means of memory.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)
     A reaction: This is interesting for showing how Locke was essentially trying to meet (in advance) Hume's 'bundle' scepticism. Hume proposed associations as the unifying factor, instead of memories. Ayer proposes concepts as a candidate.
Not all exerience can be remembered, as this would produce an infinite regress [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Not every experience can be remembered; otherwise each piece of remembering, which is itself an experience, would have to be remembered, and each remembering of a remembering and so ad infinitum.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)
     A reaction: See Idea 5667. Ayer takes for granted two sorts of consciousness - current awareness, and memory. Ayer brings out a nice difficulty for Locke's proposal, but also draws attention to what may be a very basic misunderstanding about the mind.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 6. Body sustains Self
Personal identity can't just be relations of experiences, because the body is needed to identify them [Ayer]
     Full Idea: A Humean theory, in which a person's identity is made to depend upon relations between experiences ..is not tenable unless the experiences themselves can be identified, and that is only possible through their association with the body.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV)
     A reaction: This seems to me a very fruitful response to difficulties with the 'bundle' view of a person - a better response than the a priori claims of Butler and Reid, or the transcendental argument of Kant. Only a philosopher could ignore the body.
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
Reference is by name, or a term-plus-circumstance, or ostensively, or by description [Reid]
     Full Idea: An individual is expressed by a proper name, or by a general word joined to distinguishing circumstances; if unknown, it may be pointed out to the senses; when beyond the reach of the senses it may be picked out by an imperfect but true description.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
     A reaction: [compressed] If Putnam, Kripke and Donnellan had read this paragraph they could have save themselves a lot of work! I take reference to be the activity of speakers and writers, and these are the main tools of the trade.
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / c. Social reference
A word's meaning is the thing conceived, as fixed by linguistic experts [Reid]
     Full Idea: The meaning of a word (such as 'felony') is the thing conceived; and that meaning is the conception affixed to it by those who best understand the language.
     From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
     A reaction: He means legal experts. This is precisely that same as Putnam's account of the meaning of 'elm tree'. His discussion here of reference is the earliest I have encountered, and it is good common sense (for which Reid is famous).