33 ideas
| 17729 | Examining concepts can recover information obtained through the senses [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: My idea is that conceptual examination might be a way of recovering information previously obtained through the senses. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.8) | |
| A reaction: Now you're talking! This is really interesting conceptual analysis, rather than the sort of stamp-collecting approach to analsis practised by the duller sort of philosopher. But why bother with conceptual examination, when you have senses? |
| 17740 | Instead of correspondence of proposition to fact, look at correspondence of its parts [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Instead of considering only a proposition's 'correspondence to the facts', we should also consider the correspondence between parts of the proposition and parts of the world (a 'correspondence-as-congruence' view). | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Final - Branching) | |
| A reaction: This is something like Russell's Othello example (1912), except that the parts there, with relations seemed to add up to the whole proposition. For Jenkins, presumably parts might correspond, but the whole proposition fail to. |
| 17730 | Combining the concepts of negation and finiteness gives the concept of infinity [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: We might arrive to the concept of infinity by composing concepts of negation and finiteness. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably lots of concepts can be arrived at by negating prior concepts (such as not-wet, not-tall, not-loud, not-straight). So not-infinite is perfectly plausible, and is a far better account than some a priori intuition of pure infinity. Love it. |
| 17719 | Arithmetic concepts are indispensable because they accurately map the world [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: The indispensability of arithmetical concepts is evidence that they do in fact accurately represent features of the independent world. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be by far the best account of the matter. So why is the world so arithmetical? Dunno, mate; ask someone else. |
| 17717 | Senses produce concepts that map the world, and arithmetic is known through these concepts [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: I propose that arithmetical truths are known through an examination of our own arithmetical concepts; that basic arithmetical concepts map the arithmetical structure of the world; that the map obtains in virtue of our normal sensory apparatus. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Pref) | |
| A reaction: She defends the nice but unusual position that arithmetical knowledge is both a priori and empirical (so that those two notions are not, as usually thought, opposed). I am a big Carrie Jenkins fan. |
| 17724 | It is not easy to show that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: A problem for the neo-Fregeans is that it has not proved easy to establish that Hume's Principle is analytic or definitive in the required sense. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: It is also asked how we would know the principle, if it is indeed analytic or definitional (Jenkins p.119). |
| 17727 | We can learn about the world by studying the grounding of our concepts [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: What concept grounding does for us is ensure that our concepts, like the results of our empirical tests, can be treated as a source of information about the independent world. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably we learn our concepts hand-in-hand with experience, so learning our concepts is itself learning about the world. Later checking of concepts and their relations largely confirms what we already knew? |
| 17720 | There's essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive dependence [Jenkins, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Dependence comes in essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive forms. | |
| From: report of Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 1.2) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: You'll have to look up Jenkins for the details. |
| 17728 | The concepts we have to use for categorising are ones which map the real world well [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Concepts which are indispensably useful for categorising, understanding, explaining, and predicting our sensory input are likely to be ones which map the structure of that input well. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: Anti-realists about classification seem to think that we just invent an array of concepts, and then start classifying with them. The truth seems to be that the actual classes of worldly thing have generated our concepts. |
| 17726 | Examining accurate, justified or grounded concepts brings understanding of the world [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Examining accurate concepts can help us acquire true beliefs about the world, examining justified concepts can help us acquire justified beliefs about the world, and examining grounded concepts can help us acquire knowledge of it. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This summarises Jenkins's empirical account of concepts, and I love it all to bits. I feel that contemporary philosophy is beginning to produce a coherent naturalistic worldview which can replace religion. Bar the rituals. We can have priests... |
| 17734 | It is not enough that intuition be reliable - we need to know why it is reliable [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: The mere reliability of intuition is not a satisfactory ground for saying it is a source of knowledge - we need to know why it is reliable to understand whether it can be a source of knowledge. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: My theory is that intuition is simply believing things for reasons which we have either forgotten, or (more likely) reasons which are too complex or subtle to be articulated. Intuition feels rational, because it is rational. Updated view of mind needed. |
| 17723 | Knowledge is true belief which can be explained just by citing the proposition believed [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: I propose that knowledge is true belief which can be well explained .....just by citing the proposition believed. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: I don't find this appealing, and my reservation about Jenkins's book is her reliabilist, externalist epistemology. I would add an internalist coherentist epistemology to her very nice theory. 'I believe there are fairies at the bottom of my garden'? |
| 17739 | The physical effect of world on brain explains the concepts we possess [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: I think the physical effects of the world on the brain explain our possessing the concepts we do. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice slogan for a thought which strikes me as exactly right. |
| 17718 | Grounded concepts are trustworthy maps of the world [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Grounded concepts are like trustworthy on-board maps of the independent world. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: You'll probably need more than one concept for it to qualify as a 'map', but I like this idea a lot. The world, rather than we ourselves, creates our concepts. The opposite of the view of Geach in 'Mental Acts'. |
| 17731 | Verificationism is better if it says meaningfulness needs concepts grounded in the senses [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: I find an updated verificationism plausible, in which we say something meaningful just in case we employ only concepts whose possession could be justified or disjustified by sensory input. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: Wow! This is the first time I have ever had the slightest sympathy for verificationism. It saves my favourite problem case - of wild but meaningful speculation, for example about the contents of another universe. A very nice idea. |
| 4001 | The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel] |
| Full Idea: The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses, true and false, not only its actual ones. | |
| From: Thomas Nagel (What Does It All Mean? [1987], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: It has always seemed to me that meaning is not use, because you can't use it if it hasn't already got a meaning. What use is a meaningless word? |
| 17732 | Success semantics explains representation in terms of success in action [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Success semantics is the attempt to understand mental representation by thinking about the ways in which representing the world can lead to success in action. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be what is also known as 'teleological semantics'. It sounds to me as if this might help to explain success in action, but isn't going to explain the representations that result in the success. |
| 17725 | 'Analytic' can be conceptual, or by meaning, or predicate inclusion, or definition... [Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: 'Analytic' might mean conceptually true, or true in virtue of meaning, or where the predicate is contained in the subject, or for sentences which define something, or where meaning is sufficient for the truth. | |
| From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: The second one says meaning grounds the truth, where the last one says meaning entails the truth. |
| 20014 | Actions include: the involuntary, the purposeful, the intentional, and the self-consciously autonomous [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: There are different levels of action, including at least: unconscious and/or involuntary behaviour, purposeful or goal-directed activity, intentional action, and the autonomous acts or actions of self-consciously active human agents. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: The fourth class is obviously designed to distinguish us from the other animals. It immediately strikes me as very optimistic to distinguish four (at least) clear categories, but you have to start somewhere. |
| 20019 | Maybe bodily movements are not actions, but only part of an agent's action of moving [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Some say that the movement's of agent's body are never actions. It is only the agent's direct moving of, say, his leg that constitutes a physical action; the leg movement is merely caused by and/or incorporated as part of the act of moving. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: [they cite Jennifer Hornsby 1980] It seems normal to deny a twitch the accolade of an 'action', so I suppose that is right. Does the continual movement of my tongue count as action? Only if I bring it under control? Does it matter? Only in forensics. |
| 20021 | Is the action the arm movement, the whole causal process, or just the trying to do it? [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers have favored the overt arm movement the agent performs, some favor the extended causal process he initiates, and some prefer the relevant event of trying that precedes and 'generates' the rest. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: [Davidson argues for the second, Hornsby for the third] There seems no way to settle this, and a compromise looks best. Mere movement won't do, and mere trying won't do, and whole processes get out of control. |
| 20022 | To be intentional, an action must succeed in the manner in which it was planned [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: If someone fires a bullet to kill someone, misses, and dislodges hornets that sting him to death, this implies that an intentional action must include succeeding in a manner according to the original plan. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: [their example, compressed] This resembles Gettier's problem cases for knowledge. If the shooter deliberately and maliciously brought down the hornet's nest, that would be intentional murder. Sounds right. |
| 20023 | If someone believes they can control the lottery, and then wins, the relevant skill is missing [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: If someone enters the lottery with the bizarre belief that they can control who wins, and then wins it, that suggest that intentional actions must not depend on sheer luck, but needs competent exercise of the relevant skill. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: A nice companion to Idea 20022, which show that a mere intention is not sufficient to motivate and explain an action. |
| 20025 | We might intend two ways to acting, knowing only one of them can succeed [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: If an agent tries to do something by two different means, only one of which can succeed, then the behaviour is rational, even though one of them is an attempt to do an action which cannot succeed. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: [a concise account of a laborious account of an example from Bratman 1984, 1987] Bratman uses this to challenge the 'Simple View', that intention leads straightforwardly to action. |
| 20031 | On one model, an intention is belief-desire states, and intentional actions relate to beliefs and desires [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: On the simple desire-belief model, an intention is a combination of desire-belief states, and an action is intentional in virtue of standing in the appropriate relation to these simpler terms. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 4) | |
| A reaction: This is the traditional view found in Hume, and is probably endemic to folk psychology. They cite Bratman 1987 as the main opponent of the view. |
| 20028 | Groups may act for reasons held by none of the members, so maybe groups are agents [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Rational group action may involve a 'collectivising of reasons', with participants acting in ways that are not rationally recommended from the individual viewpoint. This suggests that groups can be rational, intentional agents. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: [Pettit 2003] is the source for this. Gilbert says individuals can have joint commitment; Pettit says the group can be an independent agent. The matter of shared intentions is interesting, but there is no need for the ontology to go berserk. |
| 20027 | If there are shared obligations and intentions, we may need a primitive notion of 'joint commitment' [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: An account of mutual obligation to do something may require that we give up reductive individualist accounts of shared activity and posit a primitive notion of 'joint commitment'. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: [attributed to Margaret Gilbert 2000] If 'we' are trying to do something, that seems to give an externalist picture of intentions, rather like all the other externalisms floating around these days. I don't buy any of it, me. |
| 20016 | Strong Cognitivism identifies an intention to act with a belief [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: A Strong Cognitivist is someone who identifies an intention with a certain pertinent belief about what she is doing or about to do. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: (Sarah Paul 2009 makes this distinction) The belief, if so, seems to be as much counterfactual as factual. Hope seems to come into it, which isn't exactly a belief. |
| 20017 | Weak Cognitivism says intentions are only partly constituted by a belief [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: A Weak Cognitivist holds that intentions are partly constituted by, but are not identical with, relevant beliefs about the action. Grice (1971) said an intention is willing an action, combined with a belief that this will lead to the action. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I didn't find Strong Cognitivism appealing, but it seems hard to argue with some form of the weak version. |
| 20018 | Strong Cognitivism implies a mode of 'practical' knowledge, not based on observation [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Strong Cognitivists say intentions/beliefs are not based on observation or evidence, and are causally reliable in leading to appropriate actions, so this is a mode of 'practical' knowledge that has not been derived from observation. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed - Stanford unnecessarily verbose!] I see no mention in this discussion of 'hoping' that your action will turn out OK. We are usually right to hope, but it would be foolish to say that when we reach for the salt we know we won't knock it over. |
| 20012 | Maybe the explanation of an action is in the reasons that make it intelligible to the agent [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Some have maintained that we explain why an agent acted as he did when we explicate how the agent's normative reasons rendered the action intelligible in his eyes. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Modern psychology is moving against this, by showing how hidden biases can predominate over conscious reasons (as in Kahnemann's work). I would say this mode of explanation works better for highly educated people (but you can chuckle at that). |
| 20029 | Causalists allow purposive explanations, but then reduce the purpose to the action's cause [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: Most causalists allow that reason explanations are teleological, but say that such purposive explanations are analysable causally, where the primary reasons for the act are the guiding causes of the act. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: The authors observe that it is hard to adjudicate on this matter, and that the concept of the 'cause' of an action is unclear. |
| 20013 | It is generally assumed that reason explanations are causal [Wilson/Schpall] |
| Full Idea: The view that reason explanations are somehow causal explanations remains the dominant position. | |
| From: Wilson,G/Schpall,S (Action [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that this is only because no philosopher has a better idea, and the whole issue is being slowly outflanked by psychology. |