Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'De Anima', 'on Goodman's 'Ways of Worldmaking'' and 'Contemporary Philosophy of Mind'

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115 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
An account is either a definition or a demonstration [Aristotle]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 4. Contraries
From one thing alone we can infer its contrary [Aristotle]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / d. Singular terms
Varieties of singular terms are used to designate token particulars [Rey]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / a. Numbers
We perceive number by the denial of continuity [Aristotle]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / b. Indispensability of mathematics
Physics requires the existence of properties, and also the abstract objects of arithmetic [Rey]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 4. Ontological Dependence
What is prior is always potentially present in what is next in order [Aristotle]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
Sight is the essence of the eye, fitting its definition; the eye itself is just the matter [Aristotle]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
The substance is the cause of a thing's being [Aristotle]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
Matter is potential, form is actual [Aristotle]
Scientists explain anger by the matter, dialecticians by the form and the account [Aristotle]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
The Indiscernibility of Identicals is a truism; but the Identity of Indiscernibles depends on possible identical worlds [Rey]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / c. Tabula rasa
The intellect has potential to think, like a tablet on which nothing has yet been written [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perception of sensible objects is virtually never wrong [Aristotle]
Perception necessitates pleasure and pain, which necessitates appetite [Aristotle]
Why do we have many senses, and not just one? [Aristotle]
Our minds take on the form of what is being perceived [Aristotle, by Mares]
Why can't we sense the senses? And why do senses need stimuli? [Aristotle]
Sense organs aren't the end of sensation, or they would know what does the sensing [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
Many objects of sensation are common to all the senses [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Some objects of sensation are unique to one sense, where deception is impossible [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
In moral thought images are essential, to be pursued or avoided [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
We may think when we wish, but not perceive, because universals are within the mind [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Empiricism says experience is both origin and justification of all knowledge [Rey]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 9. Naturalised Epistemology
Animal learning is separate from their behaviour [Rey]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 2. Demonstration
Demonstration starts from a definition of essence, so we can derive (or conjecture about) the properties [Aristotle]
Demonstrations move from starting-points to deduced conclusions [Aristotle]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
To understand a triangle summing to two right angles, we need to know the essence of a line [Aristotle]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / a. Best explanation
Abduction could have true data and a false conclusion, and may include data not originally mentioned [Rey]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
It's not at all clear that explanation needs to stop anywhere [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Mind involves movement, perception, incorporeality [Aristotle]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
The three theories are reduction, dualism, eliminativism [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
Aristotle led to the view that there are several souls, all somewhat physical [Aristotle, by Martin/Barresi]
Soul is seen as what moves, or what is least physical, or a combination of elements [Aristotle]
Psuché is the form and actuality of a body which potentially has life [Aristotle]
The soul is the cause or source of movement, the essence of body, and its end [Aristotle]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind
Understanding is impossible, if it involves the understanding having parts [Aristotle]
If the soul is composed of many physical parts, it can't be a true unity [Aristotle]
If a soul have parts, what unites them? [Aristotle]
What unifies the soul would have to be a super-soul, which seems absurd [Aristotle]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
In a way the soul is everything which exists, through its perceptions and thoughts [Aristotle]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Is consciousness 40Hz oscillations in layers 5 and 6 of the visual cortex? [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy
Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Intentional explanations are always circular [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
Arithmetic and unconscious attitudes have no qualia [Rey]
Why qualia, and why this particular quale? [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality
If qualia have no function, their attachment to thoughts is accidental [Rey]
Are qualia a type of propositional attitude? [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
Are qualia irrelevant to explaining the mind? [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 6. Inverted Qualia
If colour fits a cone mapping hue, brightness and saturation, rotating the cone could give spectrum inversion [Rey]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 1. Faculties
If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Self-moving animals must have desires, and that entails having imagination [Aristotle]
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 6. Self as Higher Awareness
Self-consciousness may just be nested intentionality [Rey]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 4. Errors in Introspection
Experiments prove that people are often unaware of their motives [Rey]
Brain damage makes the unreliability of introspection obvious [Rey]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
If reason could be explained in computational terms, there would be no need for the concept of 'free will' [Rey]
Free will isn't evidence against a theory of thought if there is no evidence for free will [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 1. Dualism
Emotion involves the body, thinking uses the mind, imagination hovers between them [Aristotle]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
All the emotions seem to involve the body, simultaneously with the feeling [Aristotle]
The soul (or parts of it) is not separable from the body [Aristotle]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
If soul is separate from body, why does it die when the body dies? [Aristotle]
Thinkers place the soul within the body, but never explain how they are attached [Aristotle]
Early thinkers concentrate on the soul but ignore the body, as if it didn't matter what body received the soul [Aristotle]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 1. Behaviourism
Maybe behaviourists should define mental states as a group [Rey]
Behaviourism is eliminative, or reductionist, or methodological [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Animals don't just respond to stimuli, they experiment [Rey]
How are stimuli and responses 'similar'? [Rey]
Behaviour is too contingent and irrelevant to be the mind [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
Aristotle has a problem fitting his separate reason into the soul, which is said to be the form of the body [Ackrill on Aristotle]
Does the mind think or pity, or does the whole man do these things? [Aristotle]
Dualism and physicalism explain nothing, and don't suggest any research [Rey]
If a normal person lacked a brain, would you say they had no mind? [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 6. Homuncular Functionalism
Homuncular functionalism (e.g. Freud) could be based on simpler mechanical processes [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 7. Chinese Room
Is the room functionally the same as a Chinese speaker? [Rey]
Searle is guilty of the fallacy of division - attributing a property of the whole to a part [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
One computer program could either play chess or fight a war [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
The soul and the body are inseparable, like the imprint in some wax [Aristotle]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
If you explain water as H2O, you have reduced water, but not eliminated it [Rey]
Human behaviour can show law-like regularity, which eliminativism can't explain [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Pattern recognition is puzzling for computation, but makes sense for connectionism [Rey]
Connectionism explains well speed of perception and 'graceful degradation' [Rey]
Connectionism explains irrationality (such as the Gamblers' Fallacy) quite well [Rey]
Connectionism assigns numbers to nodes and branches, and plots the outcomes [Rey]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
Can identity explain reason, free will, non-extension, intentionality, subjectivity, experience? [Rey]
Physicalism offers something called "complexity" instead of mental substance [Rey]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Thinking is not perceiving, but takes the form of imagination and speculation [Aristotle]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 2. Propositional Attitudes
Some attitudes are information (belief), others motivate (hatred) [Rey]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / b. Human rationality
Aristotle makes belief a part of reason, but sees desires as separate [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 3. Modularity of Mind
Children speak 90% good grammar [Rey]
Good grammar can't come simply from stimuli [Rey]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Animals may also use a language of thought [Rey]
We train children in truth, not in grammar [Rey]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
Images can't replace computation, as they need it [Rey]
CRTT is good on deduction, but not so hot on induction, abduction and practical reason [Rey]
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
Problem-solving clearly involves manipulating images [Rey]
Animals map things over time as well as over space [Rey]
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
Simple externalism is that the meaning just is the object [Rey]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / h. Family resemblance
Anything bears a family resemblance to a game, but obviously not anything counts as one [Rey]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
A one hour gap in time might be indirectly verified, but then almost anything could be [Rey]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
The meaning of "and" may be its use, but not of "animal" [Rey]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Semantic holism means new evidence for a belief changes the belief, and we can't agree on concepts [Rey]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
Causal theories of reference (by 'dubbing') don't eliminate meanings in the heads of dubbers [Rey]
If meaning and reference are based on causation, then virtually everything has meaning [Rey]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference
Referential Opacity says truth is lost when you substitute one referring term ('mother') for another ('Jocasta') [Rey]
19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature
A simple chaining device can't build sentences containing 'either..or', or 'if..then' [Rey]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Self-controlled follow understanding, when it is opposed to desires [Aristotle]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / a. Nature of pleasure
Pleasure and pain are perceptions of things as good or bad [Aristotle]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / h. Right feelings
Our desires become important when we have desires about desires [Rey]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
Nature does nothing in vain [Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
If all movement is either pushing or pulling, there must be a still point in between where it all starts [Aristotle]
Movement is spatial, alteration, withering or growth [Aristotle]
Practical reason is based on desire, so desire must be the ultimate producer of movement [Aristotle]
Movement can be intrinsic (like a ship) or relative (like its sailors) [Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / b. Laws of motion
If something is pushed, it pushes back [Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
What is born has growth, a prime, and a withering away [Aristotle]