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All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'Philosophy of Mind' and 'Writings from Late Notebooks'

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160 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 3. Wisdom Deflated
'Wisdom' attempts to get beyond perspectives, making it hostile to life [Nietzsche]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Words such as 'I' and 'do' and 'done to' are placed at the point where our ignorance begins [Nietzsche]
Pessimism is laughable, because the world cannot be evaluated [Nietzsche]
Is a 'philosopher' now impossible, because knowledge is too vast for an overview? [Nietzsche]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
Philosophers should create and fight for their concepts, not just clean and clarify them [Nietzsche]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
If one theory is reduced to another, we make fewer independent assumptions about the world [Kim]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
Logic tries to understand the world according to a man-made scheme [Nietzsche]
Logic is not driven by truth, but desire for a simple single viewpoint [Nietzsche]
Logic must falsely assume that identical cases exist [Nietzsche]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
Intuitionists deny excluded middle, because it is committed to transcendent truth or objects [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / b. Types of number
The number 3 is presumably identical as a natural, an integer, a rational, a real, and complex [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / h. Reals from Cauchy
Cauchy gave a formal definition of a converging sequence. [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 1. Foundations for Mathematics
Categories are the best foundation for mathematics [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / f. Zermelo numbers
Two definitions of 3 in terms of sets disagree over whether 1 is a member of 3 [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / a. Structuralism
Numbers do not exist independently; the essence of a number is its relations to other numbers [Shapiro]
A 'system' is related objects; a 'pattern' or 'structure' abstracts the pure relations from them [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
Logicism seems to be a non-starter if (as is widely held) logic has no ontology of its own [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 7. Formalism
Term Formalism says mathematics is just about symbols - but real numbers have no names [Shapiro]
Game Formalism is just a matter of rules, like chess - but then why is it useful in science? [Shapiro]
Deductivism says mathematics is logical consequences of uninterpreted axioms [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / b. Intuitionism
Critics resent the way intuitionism cripples mathematics, but it allows new important distinctions [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / c. Conceptualism
Conceptualist are just realists or idealist or nominalists, depending on their view of concepts [Shapiro]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / d. Predicativism
'Impredicative' definitions refer to the thing being described [Shapiro]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
Supervenience suggest dependence without reduction (e.g. beauty) [Kim]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
We can't be realists, because we don't know what being is [Nietzsche]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
'Physical facts determine all the facts' is the physicalists' slogan [Kim]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
Categories are not metaphysical truths, but inventions in the service of needs [Nietzsche]
Philosophers find it particularly hard to shake off belief in necessary categories [Nietzsche]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties
Resemblance or similarity is the core of our concept of a property [Kim]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 7. Emergent Properties
Is weight a 'resultant' property of water, but transparency an 'emergent' property? [Kim]
Emergent properties are 'brute facts' (inexplicable), but still cause things [Kim]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 5. Powers and Properties
Should properties be individuated by their causal powers? [Kim]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects [Nietzsche]
Counting needs unities, but that doesn't mean they exist; we borrowed it from the concept of 'I' [Nietzsche]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
The essence of a thing is only an opinion about the 'thing' [Nietzsche]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
Something can be irrefutable; that doesn't make it true [Nietzsche]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
There are no necessary truths, but something must be held to be true [Nietzsche]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
Counterfactuals are either based on laws, or on nearby possible worlds [Kim, by PG]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First
We can't use our own self to criticise our own capacity for knowledge! [Nietzsche]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 5. Cogito Critique
Belief in the body is better established than belief in the mind [Nietzsche]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 5. Interpretation
Sense perceptions contain values (useful, so pleasant) [Nietzsche]
Pain shows the value of the damage, not what has been damaged [Nietzsche]
Perception is unconscious, and we are only conscious of processed perceptions [Nietzsche]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
Comprehending everything is impossible, because it abolishes perspectives [Nietzsche]
Is the perspectival part of the essence, or just a relation between beings? [Nietzsche]
'Perspectivism': the world has no meaning, but various interpretations give it countless meanings [Nietzsche]
'Subjectivity' is an interpretation, since subjects (and interpreters) are fictions [Nietzsche]
There are different eyes, so different 'truths', so there is no truth [Nietzsche]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Explanation is just showing the succession of things ever more clearly [Nietzsche]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / b. Purpose of mind
The intellect and senses are a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Mind is basically qualities and intentionality, but how do they connect? [Kim]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
Mind is only interesting if it has causal powers [Kim]
Experiment requires mental causation [Kim]
Beliefs cause other beliefs [Kim]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 5. Unity of Mind
With protoplasm ½+½=2, so the soul is not an indivisible monad [Nietzsche]
Unity is not in the conscious 'I', but in the organism, which uses the self as a tool [Nietzsche]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / d. Purpose of consciousness
Consciousness exists to the extent that consciousness is useful [Nietzsche]
Consciousness is a 'tool' - just as the stomach is a tool [Nietzsche]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / a. Nature of intentionality
Both thought and language have intentionality [Kim]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Intentionality involves both reference and content [Kim]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
Are pains pure qualia, or do they motivate? [Kim]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality
Pain has no reference or content [Kim]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 6. Inverted Qualia
Inverted qualia and zombies suggest experience isn't just functional [Kim]
Crosswiring would show that pain and its function are separate [Kim, by PG]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection
Externalism about content makes introspection depend on external evidence [Kim]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection
We think each thought causes the next, unaware of the hidden struggle beneath [Nietzsche]
How do we distinguish our anger from embarrassment? [Kim]
We often can't decide what emotion, or even sensation, we are experiencing [Kim]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
The 'I' is a conceptual synthesis, not the governor of our being [Nietzsche]
The 'I' is a fiction used to make the world of becoming 'knowable' [Nietzsche]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
'Freedom of will' is the feeling of having a dominating force [Nietzsche]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
Mental substance causation makes physics incomplete [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 6. Epiphenomenalism
If epiphenomenalism were true, we couldn't report consciousness [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 7. Zombies
Are inverted or absent qualia coherent ideas? [Kim]
What could demonstrate that zombies and inversion are impossible? [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
Cartesian dualism fails because it can't explain mental causation [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 1. Behaviourism
Logical behaviourism translates mental language to behavioural [Kim]
Behaviourism reduces mind to behaviour via bridging principles [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Are dispositions real, or just a type of explanation? [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
What behaviour goes with mathematical beliefs? [Kim]
Behaviour depends on lots of mental states together [Kim]
Behaviour is determined by society as well as mental states [Kim]
Snakes have different pain behaviour from us [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
Machine functionalism requires a Turing machine, causal-theoretical version doesn't [Kim]
Neurons seem to be very similar and interchangeable [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 7. Chinese Room
The person couldn't run Searle's Chinese Room without understanding Chinese [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
How do functional states give rise to mental causation? [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 1. Reductionism critique
Reductionism is impossible if there aren't any 'bridge laws' between mental and physical [Kim]
Reductionism gets stuck with qualia [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 3. Property Dualism
Most modern physicalists are non-reductive property dualists [Kim]
We can't assess evidence about mind without acknowledging phenomenal properties [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind
Supervenience says all souls are identical, being physically indiscernible [Kim]
Zombies and inversion suggest non-reducible supervenience [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Token physicalism isn't reductive; it just says all mental events have some physical properties [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
The core of the puzzle is the bridge laws between mind and brain [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
Elimination can either be by translation or by causal explanation [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
Reductionists deny new causal powers at the higher level [Kim]
Without reductionism, mental causation is baffling [Kim]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / d. Explanatory gap
If an orange image is a brain state, are some parts of the brain orange? [Kim]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 2. Propositional Attitudes
How do we distinguish our attitudes from one another? [Kim]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology has been remarkably durable [Kim]
Maybe folk psychology is a simulation, not a theory [Kim]
A culture without our folk psychology would be quite baffling [Kim]
Folk psychology has adapted to Freudianism [Kim]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
Rationality is a scheme we cannot cast away [Nietzsche]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / c. Turing Test
A machine with a mind might still fail the Turing Test [Kim]
The Turing Test is too specifically human in its requirements [Kim]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
Two identical brain states could have different contents in different worlds [Kim]
Two types of water are irrelevant to accounts of behaviour [Kim]
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
Content may match several things in the environment [Kim]
'Arthritis in my thigh' requires a social context for its content to be meaningful [Kim]
Content is best thought of as truth conditions [Kim]
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
Pain, our own existence, and negative existentials, are not external [Kim]
Content depends on other content as well as the facts [Kim]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / c. Principle of charity
We assume people believe the obvious logical consequences of their known beliefs [Kim]
If someone says "I do and don't like x", we don't assume a contradiction [Kim]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
There is no will; weakness of will is splitting of impulses, strong will is coordination under one impulse [Nietzsche]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Experiencing a thing as beautiful is to experience it wrongly [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
Morality is a system of values which accompanies a being's life [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / f. Ethical non-cognitivism
Morality is merely interpretations, which are extra-moral in origin [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / d. Biological ethics
Values are innate and inherited [Nietzsche]
Our values express an earlier era's conditions for survival and growth [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends
Knowledge, wisdom and goodness only have value relative to a goal [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
Altruism is praised by the egoism of the weak, who want everyone to be looked after [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / i. Self-interest
A living being is totally 'egoistic' [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness
Modest people express happiness as 'Not bad' [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / d. Routes to happiness
The only happiness is happiness with illusion [Nietzsche]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / a. Nature of pleasure
Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / d. Virtue theory critique
Virtue is wasteful, as it reduces us all to being one another's nurse [Nietzsche]
Virtue for everyone removes its charm of being exceptional and aristocratic [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character
What does not kill us makes us stronger [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
Courage, compassion, insight, solitude are the virtues, with courtesy a necessary vice [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology
Replace the categorical imperative by the natural imperative [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 1. Existentialism
Not feeling harnessed to a system of 'ends' is a wonderful feeling of freedom [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
Nihilism results from measuring the world by our categories which are purely invented [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
By developing herd virtues man fixes what has up to now been the 'unfixed animal' [Nietzsche]
Virtues from outside are dangerous, and they should come from within [Nietzsche]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 8. Eternal Recurrence
Existence without meaning or goal or end, eternally recurring, is a terrible thought [Nietzsche]
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness
Man is above all a judging animal [Nietzsche]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / a. Centralisation
The upholding of the military state is needed to maintain the strong human type [Nietzsche]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
Rights arise out of contracts, which need a balance of power [Nietzsche]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes
'Purpose' is like the sun, where most heat is wasted, and a tiny part has 'purpose' [Nietzsche]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / c. Purpose denied
If the world aimed at an end, it would have reached it by now [Nietzsche]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
A common view is that causal connections must be instances of a law [Kim]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
Laws are either 'strict', or they involve a 'ceteris paribus' clause [Kim]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions [Nietzsche]
Chemical 'laws' are merely the establishment of power relations between weaker and stronger [Nietzsche]
All motions and 'laws' are symptoms of inner events, traceable to the will to power [Nietzsche]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Darwin overestimates the influence of 'external circumstances' [Nietzsche]
Survival might undermine an individual's value, or prevent its evolution [Nietzsche]
The utility of an organ does not explain its origin, on the contrary! [Nietzsche]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
Remove goodness and wisdom from our concept of God. Being the highest power is enough! [Nietzsche]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / a. Divine morality
Morality kills religion, because a Christian-moral God is unbelievable [Nietzsche]
It is dishonest to invent a being containing our greatest values, thus ignoring why they exist and are valuable [Nietzsche]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality
Morality can only be upheld by belief in God and a 'hereafter' [Nietzsche]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
Paganism is a form of thanking and affirming life? [Nietzsche]
29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity
Christian belief is kept alive because it is soothing - the proof based on pleasure [Nietzsche]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / d. Heaven
In heaven all the interesting men are missing [Nietzsche]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
A combination of great power and goodness would mean the disastrous abolition of evil [Nietzsche]