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All the ideas for 'Consciousness', 'The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge' and 'An Essay in Aesthetics'

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37 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory
Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Eventually set theory will have to be either naturalised or rejected, if a thoroughgoing physicalism is to be maintained.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 8.4)
     A reaction: Personally I regard Platonism as a form of naturalism (though a rather bold and dramatic one). The central issue seems to be the ability of the human main/brain to form 'abstract' notions about the physical world in which it lives.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan]
     Full Idea: If types cannot be reduced to more physical levels, this is not an embarrassment, as long as our institutional categories, our physiological categories, and our physical categories are just alternative groupings of the same tokens.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
     A reaction: This is a self-evident truth about a car engine, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply equally to a brain. Lycan's identification of the type as the thing which cannot be reduced seems a promising explanation of much confusion among philosophers.
Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Institutional types are irreducible, though I assume that institutional tokens are reducible in the sense of strict identity, all the way down to the subatomic level.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
     A reaction: This seems a promising distinction, as the boundaries of 'institutions' disappear when you begin to reduce them to lower levels (cf. Idea 4601), and yet plenty of institutions are self-evidently no more than physics. Plants are invisible as physics.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan]
     Full Idea: One space-time slice may be occupied by a collection of molecules, a metal strip, a key, an allower of entry to hotel rooms, a facilitator of adultery, and a destroyer souls.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
     A reaction: Desdemona's handkerchief is a nice example. This sort of remark seems to be felt by some philosophers to be heartless wickedness, and yet it so screamingly self-evident that it is impossible to deny.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan]
     Full Idea: I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.0)
     A reaction: A passing remark in a discussion of functionalism about the mind, but I find it appealing. Causation is basic to materialistic metaphysics, and it creates networks of regular causes. It leaves open the essentialist question of WHY it has that role.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism
I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Personally I favour direct realism regarding secondary qualities, and identify greenness with some complex microphysical property exemplified by green physical objects.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 8.4)
     A reaction: He cites D.M.Armstrong (1981) as his source. Personally I find this a bewildering proposal. Does he think there is greenness in grass AS WELL AS the emission of that wavelength of electro-magnetic radiation? Is greenness zooming through the air?
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
No one has defended translational phenomenalism since Ayer in 1940 [Ayer, by Kim]
     Full Idea: I know of no serious defence of 'translational phenomenalism' since Ayer's in 1940.
     From: report of A.J. Ayer (The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge [1940]) by Jaegwon Kim - What is 'naturalized epistemology'? 303-4+n
     A reaction: We can think of Ayer as a hero who explored how far extreme empiricism would go. We still have anti-realists who are singing from a revised version of the song-sheet. Personally I am with Russell, that we must embrace the best explanation.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality
Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Intentionality comes in degrees.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: I agree. A footprint is 'about' a foot, in the sense of containing concentrated information about it. Can we, though, envisage a higher degree than human thought? Is there a maximum degree? Everything is 'about' everything, in some respect.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan]
     Full Idea: The teleological view begins to explain intentionality, and in particular allows brain states and events to have false intentional content; causal and nomological theories of intentionality tend to falter on this last task.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.4)
     A reaction: Certainly if you say thought is 'caused' by the world, false thought become puzzling. I'm not sure I understand the rest of this, but it is an intriguing remark about a significant issue…
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Our phenomenal experience of pain has components - it is a complex, consisting (perhaps) of urges, desires, impulses, and beliefs, probably occurring at quite different levels of institutional abstraction.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.5)
     A reaction: This seems to be true, and offers the reductionist a strategy for making inroads into the supposed irreducable and fundamental nature of qualia. What's it like to be a complex hierarchically structured multi-functional organism?
The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan]
     Full Idea: It is just arbitrary to choose a level of nature a priori as the locus of qualia, even though we can agree that high levels (such as behaviourism) and low-levels (such as the subatomic) can be ruled out as totally improbable.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.6)
     A reaction: Very good. People scream 'qualia!' whenever the behaviour level or the atomic level are proposed as the locations of the mind, but the suggestion that they are complex, and are spread across many functional levels in the middle sounds good.
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
Most of us are too close to our own motives to understand them [Fry]
     Full Idea: The motives we actually experience are too close to us to enable us to feel them clearly. They are in a sense unintelligible.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.30)
     A reaction: Fry is defending the role of art in clarifying and highlighting such things, but I am not convinced by his claim. We can grasp most of our motives with a little introspection, and those we can't grasp are probably too subtle for art as well.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan]
     Full Idea: By interacting causally, Cartesian dualism seems to violate the conservation laws of physics (concerning matter and energy). This seems testable, and afferent and efferent pathways disappearing into thin air would suggest energy is not conserved.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 1.1)
     A reaction: It would seem to be no problem as long as outputs were identical in energy to inputs. If the experiment could actually be done, the result might astonish us.
In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Evolution has proceeded in all other known species by increasingly complex configurations of molecules and organs, which support primitive psychologies; our human psychologies are more advanced, but undeniably continuous with lower animals.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 1.1)
     A reaction: Personally I find the evolution objection to dualism highly persuasive. I don't see how anyone can take evolution seriously and be a dualist. If there is a dramatic ontological break at some point, a plausible reason would be needed for that.
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Old joke: two Behaviourists meet in the street, and the first says,"You're fine; how am I?"
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], n1.6)
     A reaction: This invites the response that introspection is uniquely authoritative about 'how we are', but this has been challenged quite a lot recently, which pushes us to consider whether these stupid behaviourists might actually have a good point.
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan]
     Full Idea: 'Analytical functionalists', who hold that meanings of mental terms are determined by the causal roles associated with them by 'folk psychology', deny themselves appeals to lower levels of functional organisation.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: Presumably folk psychology can fit into the kind of empirical methodology favoured by behaviourists, whereas 'lower levels' are going to become rather speculative and unscientific.
Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan]
     Full Idea: The functionalist must find a level of characterisation of mental states that is not so abstract or behaviouristic as to rule out the possibility of inverted spectrum etc., nor so specific and structural as to fall into chauvinism.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: If too specific then animals and aliens won't be able to implement the necessary functions; if the theory becomes very behaviouristic, then it loses interest in the possibility of an inverted spectrum. He is certainly right to hunt for a middle ground.
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Even the software/hardware distinction as it is literally applied within computer science is philosophically unclear.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.4)
     A reaction: This is true, and very important for functionalist theories of the mind. Even very volatile software is realised in 'hard' physics, and rewritable discs etc blur the distinction between 'programmable' and 'hardwired'.
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 5. Teleological Functionalism
Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Highly teleological characterisations, unlike naïve and explicated mental characterisations, have the virtue of shading off fairly smoothly into (more) brutely physical ones.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
     A reaction: Thus the purpose of a car engine, and a spark plug, and the spark, and the temperature, and the vibration of molecules show a fading away of the overt purpose, disappearing into the pointless activity of electrons and quantum levels.
Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan]
     Full Idea: I am taking mental types to form a small subclass of teleological types occurring for the most part at a high level of functional abstraction.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
     A reaction: He goes on to say that he understand teleology in evolutionary terms. There is always a gap between how you characterise or individuate something, and what it actually is. To say spanners are 'a small subclass of tools' is not enough.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan]
     Full Idea: 'Neuron' may be understood as a physiological term or a functional term, so even the Identity Theorist is a Functionalist - one who locates mental entities at a very low level of abstraction.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: This is a striking observation, and somewhat inclines me to switch from identity theory to functionalism. If you ask what is the correct level of abstraction, Lycan's teleological-homuncular version refers you to all the levels.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Teleological functionalism helps us to understand the nature of biological and psychological laws, particularly in the face of Davidsonian scepticism about the latter.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.4)
     A reaction: Personally I doubt the existence of psycho-physical laws, but only because of the vast complexity. They would be like the laws of weather. 'Psycho-physical' laws seem to presuppose some sort of dualism.
We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan]
     Full Idea: I am explicating the mental in a reductive way, by reducing mental characterizations to homuncular institutional ones, which are teleological characterizations at various levels of functional abstraction.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
     A reaction: I think this is the germ of a very good physicalist account of the mind. More is needed than a mere assertion about what the mind reduces to at the very lowest level; this offers a decent account of the descending stages of reduction.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan]
     Full Idea: Quite possibly a Martian's humanoid behaviour is prompted by his having sensations somewhat unlike ours, despite his superficial behavioural similarities to us.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 5.4)
     A reaction: I think this firmly refutes the multiple realisability objection to type-type physicalism. Mental events are individuated by their phenomenal features (known only to the user), and by their causal role (publicly available). These are separate.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry]
     Full Idea: In the imaginative life no action is necessary, so the whole consciousness may be focused upon the perceptive and the emotional aspects of the experience. Hence we get a different set of values, and a different kind of perception
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.24)
     A reaction: Good. A huge range of human activities are like scientific experiments, where you draw on our evolved faculties, but put them in controlled conditions, where the less convenient and stressful parts are absent. War and sport. Real and theatrical tragedy.
Everyone reveals an aesthetic attitude, looking at something which only exists to be seen [Fry]
     Full Idea: It is only when an object exists for no other purpose than to be seen that we really look at it, …and then even the most normal person adopts to some extent the artistic attitude of pure vision abstracted from necessity.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29)
     A reaction: A painter of still life looks at things which exist for other purposes, with just the attitude which Fry attributes to the viewers of the paintings. We can encourage a child to look at a flower with just this attitude.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
'Beauty' can either mean sensuous charm, or the aesthetic approval of art (which may be ugly) [Fry]
     Full Idea: There is an apparent contradiction between two distinct uses of the word 'beauty', one for that which has sensuous charm, and one for the aesthetic approval of works of imaginative art where the objects presented to us are often of extreme ugliness.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.33)
     A reaction: The gouging of eyes in 'King Lear' was always the big problem case for aesthetics, just as nowadays it is Marcel Duchamp's wretched 'Fountain'.
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 6. The Sublime
In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry]
     Full Idea: Those feelings unhappily named cosmic emotion find almost no place in life, but, since they seem to belong to certain very deep springs of our nature, do become of great importance in the arts.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.31)
     A reaction: Focus on the sublime was big in the romantic era, but Fry still sees its importance, and I don't think it ever goes away. Art styles which scorn the sublime are failing to perform their social duty, say I.
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 2. Art as Form
Art needs a mixture of order and variety in its sensations [Fry]
     Full Idea: The first quality that we demand in our [artistic] sensations will be order, without which our sensations will be troubled and perplexed, and the other will be variety, without which they will not be fully stimulated.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.32)
     A reaction: He makes good claims, but gives unconvincing reasons for them. Some of us rather like 'troubled and perplexed' sensations. And a very narrow range of sensations could still be highly stimulated. Is Fry a good aesthetician but a modest philosopher?
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 3. Art as Imitation
If graphic arts only aim at imitation, their works are only trivial ingenious toys [Fry]
     Full Idea: If imitation is the sole purpose of the graphic arts, it is surprising that the works of such arts are ever looked upon as more than curiosities, or ingenious toys, and are ever taken seriously by grown-up people.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.23)
     A reaction: But then you might say that same about fine wines. A mere nice taste is hardly worthy of grown ups, and yet lots of grown ups feeling quite passionately about it. What about Fabergé eggs?
Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything! [Fry]
     Full Idea: Ordinary people have almost no idea of what things really look like, so that the one standard that popular criticism applies to painting (whether it is like nature or not) is the one which most people are prevented frm applying properly.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29)
     A reaction: A nice remark, though there is a streak of Bloomsbury artistic snobbery running through Fry. Ordinary people recognise photographic realism, so they can study things closely either in the reality or the picture, should they so choose.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 1. Artistic Intentions
When viewing art, rather than flowers, we are aware of purpose, and sympathy with its creator [Fry]
     Full Idea: In our reaction to a work of art (rather than a flower) there is the consciousness of purpose, of a peculiar relation of sympathy with the man who made this thing in order to arouse precisely the sensations we experience.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.33)
     A reaction: I think this is entirely right. I like the mention of 'sympathy' as well as 'purpose'.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 4. Emotion in Art
In the cinema the emotions are weaker, but much clearer than in ordinary life [Fry]
     Full Idea: One notices in the visions of the cinematograph that whatever emotions are aroused by them, though they are likely to be weaker than those of ordinary life, are presented more clearly to the conscious.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.25)
     A reaction: Fry had probably only seen very simple melodramas, but the general idea that artistic emotions are weaker than real life, but much clearer, is quite plausible.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
For pure moralists art must promote right action, and not just be harmless [Fry]
     Full Idea: To the pure moralist, accepting nothing but ethical values, to be justified, the life of the imagination must be shown not only not to hinder but actually to forward right action, otherwise it is not only useless but, by absorbing energies, harmful.
     From: Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.26)
     A reaction: I think this is the sort of attitude you find in Samuel Johnson. Puritans even reject light music, which seems pleasantly harmless to the rest of us. 'Absorbing energies' doesn't sound much of an objection, and may not be the actual objection.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes
We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan]
     Full Idea: We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.4)
     A reaction: Anyone who says that key concepts, such as those concerning the mind, should come 'in degrees' wins my instant support. A whole car engine requires a very teleological explanation, the spark in the sparkplug far less so.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
The attribution of necessity to causation is either primitive animism, or confusion with logical necessity [Ayer]
     Full Idea: How are we to explain the word 'must' [about causation]? The answer is, I think, that it is either a relic of animism, or else reveals an inclination to treat causal connexion as if it were a form of logical necessity.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge [1940], IV.18)
     A reaction: The animism proposal just about makes sense (as a primitive feature of minds), but why would anyone, if they had the time and understanding, dream of treating a regular connection as a 'logical' necessity?
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter
'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan]
     Full Idea: An object is specifically physical if it figures in explanations and descriptions of features of ordinary non-living matter, as in current physics; it is more generally physical if it is simply located in space-time.
     From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 8.5)
     A reaction: This gives a useful distinction when trying to formulate a 'physicalist' account of the mind, where type-type physicalism says only the 'postulates of physics' can be used, whereas 'naturalism' about the mind uses the more general concept.