Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'The Problem of the Soul' and 'Mind and Body'

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39 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 3. Contradiction
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws' [Kirk,R]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / c. Parts of consciousness
Maybe we should see intentionality and consciousness as a single problem, not two [Kirk,R]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy
Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality
If a bird captures a worm, we could say its behaviour is 'about' the worm [Kirk,R]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal [Kirk,R]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self
The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan]
We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan]
Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan]
We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
Dualism implies some brain events with no physical cause, and others with no physical effect [Kirk,R]
People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 1. Behaviourism
Behaviourism seems a good theory for intentional states, but bad for phenomenal ones [Kirk,R]
Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships [Kirk,R]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
In 'holistic' behaviourism we say a mental state is a complex of many dispositions [Kirk,R]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
The inverted spectrum idea is often regarded as an objection to behaviourism [Kirk,R]
Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
All meaningful psychological statements can be translated into physics [Kirk,R]
Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Instead of representation by sentences, it can be by a distribution of connectionist strengths [Kirk,R]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
If mental states are multiply realisable, they could not be translated into physical terms [Kirk,R]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / f. Emotion and reason
Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts
It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them [Kirk,R]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
For behaviourists language is just a special kind of behaviour [Kirk,R]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
Behaviourists doubt whether reference is a single type of relation [Kirk,R]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism
Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity
Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan]