41 ideas
| 3969 | There are no ultimate standards of rationality, since we only assess others by our own standard [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: It makes no sense to speak of comparing or agreeing on ultimate standards of rationality, since it is our own standards in each case to which we must turn in interpreting others. This is not a failure of objectivity, but where 'questions come to an end'. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
| A reaction: This seems wrong, given the commitment to truth and charity in interpretation. He could have said the same about perception, but I doubt if he would. |
| 3972 | Truth and objectivity depend on a community of speakers to interpret what they mean [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The basis on which the concepts of truth and objectivity depend for application is a community of understanding, agreement among speakers on how each is to be understood. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
| A reaction: Obviously all understanding is, in practice, an interpretation by a community, but that isn't what 'truth' means. We mean 'true independently of any community'. |
| 6548 | 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. |
| 6532 | 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. |
| 6531 | 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. |
| 6534 | 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. |
| 6529 | 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. |
| 13095 | Essence is primitive force, or a law of change [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The essence of substances consists in the primitive force of action, or the law of the sequence of changes. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Foucher [1675], 1676) | |
| A reaction: [a 1676 note on Foucher's reply] It take these to be the two key distinctive Leibnizian contributions to the sort of metaphysic that is needed by modern science. Nature works with intrinsic essences, which are forces determining action. |
| 6549 | 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? |
| 3960 | There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right. It fits with Searle's notion of consciousness as a property, like the liquidity of water. I don't panic if I think "I have no mind, but I have extraordinary properties". |
| 6543 | 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. |
| 6537 | 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… |
| 6546 | 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? |
| 6547 | 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. |
| 6527 | 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. |
| 6528 | 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. |
| 6554 | 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. |
| 6545 | 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. |
| 6541 | 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. |
| 6539 | 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'. |
| 6535 | 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. |
| 6533 | 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. |
| 3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If there are no strict psychophysical laws, this rules out reductionism, either by definition of mental predicates in physical terms, or by way of bridging laws. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: But it is by no means clear that there are no psycho-physical laws. How could this be known a priori? |
| 3963 | There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There are no strict psychophysical laws (that is, laws connecting mental events under their mental descriptions with physical events under their physical descriptions). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly open to question. It may be just that no human mind could ever grasp such laws, given their probable complexity. |
| 3965 | Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me clearly true, however we propose to characterise mental events. |
| 3961 | Obviously all mental events are causally related to physical events [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: All mental events are causally related to physical events. ..This seems obvious. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: All mental events are physically caused. Some bodily physical events result from mental events. Probably all mental events have some effect of other mental events (all of which are in some sense physical). |
| 3966 | The correct conclusion is ontological monism combined with conceptual dualism [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My basic premises lead to the conclusion of ontological monism coupled with conceptual dualism (like Spinoza, except that he denied mental causation). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: 'Conceptual dualism' implies no real difference, but 'property dualism' is better, suggesting different properties when viewed from different angles. |
| 6544 | 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. |
| 6536 | 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. |
| 6530 | 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. |
| 6542 | 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. |
| 3967 | Absence of all rationality would be absence of thought [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: To imagine a totally irrational animal is to imagine an animal without thought. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
| A reaction: This wouldn't be so clear without the theory of evolution, which suggests that only the finders of truth last long enough to breed. |
| 3974 | Our meanings are partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: What we mean by what we say is partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.235) | |
| A reaction: There is 'strict and literal meaning', which is fixed by the words, even if I don't know what I am saying. But 'speaker's meaning' is surely a pure matter of a state of mind? |
| 3968 | Propositions explain nothing without an explanation of how sentences manage to name them [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a proposition is unhelpful, until it is explained how exactly the words in the contained sentence manage to name or describe a proposition (which even Frege failed to achieve). | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
| A reaction: It seems obvious to me that there are brain events best labelled as propositions, even if their fit with language is puzzling. |
| 3970 | Thought is only fully developed if we communicate with others [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: We would have no fully-fledge thoughts if we were not in communication with others. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
| A reaction: This seems a plausible empirical observation, though I would doubt any a priori proof of it. If animals could speak, they would become intellectuals? |
| 3971 | There is simply no alternative to the 'principle of charity' in interpreting what others do [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The 'principle of charity' is a misleading term, since there is no alternative if we want to make sense of the attitudes and actions of the agents around us. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
| A reaction: I suppose so, but only with a background of evolutionary theory. I would necessarily assume charity if a robot spoke to me. |
| 3973 | Without a teacher, the concept of 'getting things right or wrong' is meaningless [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Without a 'teacher', nothing would give content to the idea that there is a difference between getting things right and getting them wrong. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.234) | |
| A reaction: Seems right. A group of speculators with no one in the role of 'teacher' would seem to be paralysed with uncertain (except where judgements are very obvious). |
| 6538 | 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. |
| 3962 | Cause and effect relations between events must follow strict laws [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: If two events are related as cause and effect, there is a strict law under which they may be subsumed. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
| A reaction: Davidson admits that this is open to challenge (though Hume and Kant supported it). It does seem to be central to our understanding of nature. |
| 2117 | The connection in events enables us to successfully predict the future, so there must be a constant cause [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There is a connection among our appearances that provides us the means to predict future appearances with success, and this connection must have a constant cause. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Foucher [1675]) |
| 6551 | '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. |