17 ideas
11211 | If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II) | |
A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts. |
11210 | Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000]) | |
A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge. |
11212 | The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value. |
4608 | Minds are hard-wired, or trial-and-error, or experimental, or full self-aware [Dennett, by Heil] |
Full Idea: Dennett identifies a hierarchy of minds running from 'Darwinian' (hard-wired solutions to problems), to 'Skinnerian' (trial-and-error), to 'Popperian' (anticipating possible experience), to 'Gregorian' (self-conscious representation, probably linguistic). | |
From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996]) by John Heil - Philosophy of Mind Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Interesting. The concept of an experiment seems a major step (assessing reality against an internal map), and the ability to think about one's own thoughts certainly strikes me as the mark of a top level mind. Maybe that is the importance of language. |
4880 | Sentience comes in grades from robotic to super-human; we only draw a line for moral reasons [Dennett] |
Full Idea: 'Sentience' comes in every imaginable grade or intensity, from the simplest and most 'robotic', to the most exquisitely sensitive, hyper-reactive 'human'. We have to draw a line for moral policy, but it is unlikely we will ever discover a threshold. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is the only plausible view, if you take the theory of evolution seriously. We can even observe low-grade marginal sentience in our own minds, and then shoot up the scale when we focus our minds properly on an object. |
4873 | What is it like to notice an uncomfortable position when you are asleep? [Dennett] |
Full Idea: What is it like to notice, while sound asleep, that your left arm has become twisted into a position in which it is putting undue strain on your left shoulder? Like nothing. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A nice question, and all part of Dennett's accurate campaign to show that consciousness is not an all-or-nothing thing. As when we are barely aware of driving, innumerable things happen in the shadowy corners of thought. |
4881 | Being a person must involve having second-order beliefs and desires (about beliefs and desires) [Dennett] |
Full Idea: An important step towards becoming a person is the step up from a first-order intentional system to a second-order system (which has beliefs and desires about beliefs and desires). | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Call it 'meta-thought'. I agree. Dennett thinks language is crucial to this, but the hallmark of intelligence and full-blown personhood is meta- and meta-meta-thought. Maybe the development of irony is a step up the evolutionary scale. Sarcasm is GOOD. |
4875 | We descend from robots, and our intentionality is composed of billions of crude intentional systems [Dennett] |
Full Idea: We are descended from robots, and composed of robots, and all the intentionality we enjoy is derived from the more fundamental intentionality of billions of crude intentional systems. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: A more grand view of intentionality (such as Searle's) seems more attractive than this, but the crucial fact about Dennett is that he takes the implications of evolution much more seriously than other philosophers. He's probably right. |
4879 | There is no more anger in adrenaline than silliness in a bottle of whiskey [Dennett] |
Full Idea: There is no more fear or anger in adrenaline than there is silliness in a bottle of whiskey. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Not exactly an argument, but a nice rhetorical point against absurd claims about identity and reduction and elimination. We may say that there is no fear without adrenaline, and no adrenaline in a live brain without fear. |
4876 | Maybe there is a minimum brain speed for supporting a mind [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Perhaps there is a minimum speed for a mind, rather like the minimum escape velocity required to overcome gravity and leave the planet. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Dennett rejects this speculation, but he didn't stop to imagine what it would be LIKE if your brain slowed down, and he never considers Edelman's view that mind is a process. Put the two together… |
4878 | The materials for a mind only matter because of speed, and a need for transducers and effectors [Dennett] |
Full Idea: I think there are only two good reasons why, when you make a mind, the materials matter: speed, and the ubiquity of transducers and effectors throughout the nervous system. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: This sounds roughly right, because it gives you something between multiple realisability (minds made of cans and string), and type-type identity (minds ARE a particular material). Call it 'biological functionalism'? |
4874 | The predecessor and rival of the language of thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas [Dennett] |
Full Idea: The ancestor and chief rival of the language-of-thought hypothesis is the picture theory of ideas - that thoughts are about what they are about because they resemble their objects. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: When you place them side by side, neither seems quite right. How can a mental state resemble an object, and how can an inner language inherently capture the features of an object? Maybe we lack the words for the correct theory. |
4882 | Concepts are things we (unlike dogs) can think about, because we have language [Dennett] |
Full Idea: A dog cannot consider its concepts. Concepts are not things in a dog's world in the way that cats are. Concepts are things in our world, because we have language. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: Dogs must have concepts, though, or much of their behaviour (like desperation to go for a walk, or to eat) is baffling. This is as good a proposal as I have ever encountered for the value of language. Meta-thought is a huge evolutionary advantage. |
11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role). |
20074 | We can keep Davidson's account of intentions in action, by further explaining prior intentions [Davidson, by Stout,R] |
Full Idea: Davidson's original account of intentions might still stand if we could accept that prior intentions are different in kind from intentions with which one acts. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (Problems in the Explanation of Action [1987]) by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Davidson's' | |
A reaction: Davidson says prior intention is all-out judgement of desirability. Prior intentions are more deliberate, with the other intentions as a presumed background to action. Compare Sartre's dual account of the self. |
4872 | Most people see an abortion differently if the foetus lacks a brain [Dennett] |
Full Idea: If a fetus that is being considered for abortion is known to be anencephalic (lacking a brain), this dramatically changes the issue for most people, though not for all. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A very effective point, as it is hard to see what grounds could be given for not aborting in this case. But the brain then clearly becomes the focus of why abortion is often rejected by many people. |
4877 | Maybe plants are very slow (and sentient) animals, overlooked because we are faster? [Dennett] |
Full Idea: Might plants just be 'very slow animals', enjoying sentience that has been overlooked by us because of our human timescale chauvinism? | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Kinds of Minds [1996], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Delightful thought, arising from pondering the significance of the speed of operation of the brain. I think it is false, because I think high speed is essential to mind, and Dennett seems not to. |