Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness'', 'Explaining Explanation' and 'Of liberty, Fate and God's grace'

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14 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
Paradox: why do you analyse if you know it, and how do you analyse if you don't? [Ruben]
     Full Idea: The alleged paradox of analysis asserts that if one knew what was involved in the concept, one would not need the analysis; if one did not know what was involved in the concept, no analysis could be forthcoming.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1)
     A reaction: This is the sort of problem that seemed to bug Plato a lot. You certainly can't analyse something if you don't understand it, but it seems obvious that you can illuminatingly analyse something of which you have a reasonable understanding.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities
The complete concept of an individual includes contingent properties, as well as necessary ones [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In this complete concept of possible Peter are contained not only essential or necessary things, ..but also existential things, or contingent items included there, because the nature of an individual substance is to have a perfect or complete concept.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Of liberty, Fate and God's grace [1690], Grua 311), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1
     A reaction: Compare Idea 13077, where he seems to say that the complete concept is only necessarily linked to properties which will predict future events - though I suppose that would have to include all of the contingent properties mentioned here.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
The 'symmetry thesis' says explanation and prediction only differ pragmatically [Ruben]
     Full Idea: The 'symmetry thesis' holds that there is only a pragmatic, or epistemic, but no logical, difference between explaining and predicting. …The only difference is in what the producer of the deduction knows just before the deduction is produced.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 4)
     A reaction: He cites Mill has holding this view. It seems elementary to me that I can explain something but not predict it, or predict it but not explain it. The latter case is just Humean habitual induction.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / a. Explanation
Usually explanations just involve giving information, with no reference to the act of explanation [Ruben]
     Full Idea: Plato, Aristotle, Mill and Hempel believed that an explanatory product can be characterized solely in terms of the kind of information it conveys, no reference to the act of explaining being required.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 1)
     A reaction: Achinstein says it's about acts, because the same information could be an explanation, or a critique, or some other act. Ruben disagrees, and so do I.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
An explanation needs the world to have an appropriate structure [Ruben]
     Full Idea: Objects or events in the world must really stand in some appropriate 'structural' relation before explanation is possible.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7)
     A reaction: An important point. These days people talk of 'dependence relations'. Some sort of structure to reality (mainly imposed by the direction of time and causation, I would have thought) is a prerequisite of finding a direction to explanation.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Most explanations are just sentences, not arguments [Ruben]
     Full Idea: Typically, full explanations are not arguments, but singular sentences, or conjunctions thereof.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 6)
     A reaction: This is mainly objecting to the claim that explanations are deductions from laws and facts. I agree with Ruben. Explanations are just information, I think. Of course, Aristotle's demonstrations are arguments.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
The causal theory of explanation neglects determinations which are not causal [Ruben]
     Full Idea: The fault of the causal theory of explanation was to overlook the fact that there are more ways of making something what it is or being responsible for it than by causing it. …Causation is a particular type of determinative relation.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 7)
     A reaction: The only thing I can think of is that certain abstract facts are 'determined' by other abtract facts, without being 'caused' by them. A useful word.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Reducing one science to another is often said to be the perfect explanation [Ruben]
     Full Idea: The reduction of one science to another has often been taken as paradigmatic of explanation.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5)
     A reaction: It seems fairly obvious that the total reduction of chemistry to physics would involve the elimination of all the current concepts of chemistry. Could this possibly enhance our understanding of chemistry? I would have thought not.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 4. Explanation Doubts / a. Explanation as pragmatic
Facts explain facts, but only if they are conceptualised or named appropriately [Ruben]
     Full Idea: Facts explain facts only when the features and the individuals the facts are about are appropriately conceptualized or named.
     From: David-Hillel Ruben (Explaining Explanation [1990], Ch 5)
     A reaction: He has a nice example that 'Cicero's speeches stop in 43 BCE' isn't explained by 'Tully died then', if you don't know that Cicero was Tully. Ruben is not defending pragmatic explanation, but to this extent he must be right.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Consciousness is reductively explained either by how it represents, or how it is represented [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: The two main competitors for reductive theories of consciousness are the representational theory (conscious if it represents in the right way), and higher-order monitoring (conscious if it is represented in the right way).
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: Presumably there are also neuroscientists hunting for physical functions which might generate consciousness. The two mentioned here are rivals at one level of discourse. Both views may be simplistic, if complex teams of activities are involved.
Experiences can be represented consciously or unconsciously, so representation won't explain consciousness [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: On the assumption that any environmental feature can be represented either consciously or unconsciously, it is unclear how the mere representation of such a feature can render the representing state conscious.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §1)
     A reaction: The authors are rejecting simple representation as the key, in favour of a distinctive sort of self-representation. I'm inclined to think that consciousness results from multiple co-ordinated layers of representation etc., which has no simple account.
Red tomato experiences are conscious if the state represents the tomato and itself [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: The self-representational theory of consciousness says that when one has a conscious experience as of a red tomato, one is in an internal state that represents both a red tomato and itself.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §1)
     A reaction: This seems to be avoiding the concept of 'higher-order', and yet that seems the only way to describe it - thought steps outside of itself, generating a level of meta-thought. I think that's the way to go. Philosophy is about-fifth level.
How is self-representation possible, does it produce a regress, and is experience like that? [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: The difficulties with a self-representational view of consciousness are how self-representation of mental states could be possible, whether it leads to an infinite regress, and whether it can capture the actual phenomenology of experience.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §3)
     A reaction: [compressed] All of these objections strike me as persuasive, especially the first one. I'm not sure I know what self-representation is. Mirrors externally represent, and they can't represent themselves. Two mirrors together achieve something..
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
Unfortunately, higher-order representations could involve error [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: A problem for explaining consciousness by higher-order representations is that, like their first-order counterparts, they can misrepresent; there could be a subjective impression of being in a conscious state without actually being in any conscious state.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §1)
     A reaction: It sounds plausible that this is a logical possibility, but how do you assess whether it is an actual or natural possibility? Are we saying that higher-order representations are judgments, which could be true or false? Hm.