Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Consciousness Explained' and 'Principia Ethica'

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40 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence
Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / b. Primary/secondary
Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett]
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett]
Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy
We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
"Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 6. Inverted Qualia
We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 7. Blindsight
In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett]
Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett]
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett]
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 7. Self and Body / c. Self as brain controller
The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 2. Self as Social Construct
Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self
We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett]
We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 6. Epiphenomenalism
If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 6. Homuncular Functionalism
All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett]
It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
The beautiful is whatever it is intrinsically good to admire [Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
Moore tries to show that 'good' is indefinable, but doesn't understand what a definition is [MacIntyre on Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / a. Idealistic ethics
The Open Question argument leads to anti-realism and the fact-value distinction [Boulter on Moore,GE]
The naturalistic fallacy claims that natural qualties can define 'good' [Moore,GE]
Moore cannot show why something being good gives us a reason for action [MacIntyre on Moore,GE]
Can learning to recognise a good friend help us to recognise a good watch? [MacIntyre on Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
Moore's combination of antinaturalism with strong supervenience on the natural is incoherent [Hanna on Moore,GE]
Despite Moore's caution, non-naturalists incline towards intuitionism [Moore,GE, by Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / c. Objective value
We should ask what we would judge to be good if it existed in absolute isolation [Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
It is always an open question whether anything that is natural is good [Moore,GE]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
The three main values are good, right and beauty [Moore,GE, by Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / c. Right and good
For Moore, 'right' is what produces good [Moore,GE, by Ross]
'Right' means 'cause of good result' (hence 'useful'), so the end does justify the means [Moore,GE]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
Relationships imply duties to people, not merely the obligation to benefit them [Ross on Moore,GE]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes
Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]