| 24061 | If we divide the mind up according to its capacities, there are a lot of them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: For those who divide the soul into parts, and divide and separate them in accord with their capacities, the parts turn out to be very many. | |
| From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 433a32) | |
| A reaction: I accept the warning. The capacities which interest me are those which seem to generate our basic ontology, but if the capacities become fine-grained, they are legion. |
| 20204 | Whether the mind has parts is irrelevant, since it obviously has distinct capacities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It makes no difference if the soul is divided into parts or lacks parts, as it certainly has distinct capacities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1219b32), quoted by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski - Virtues of the Mind II 3.1 | |
| A reaction: I take this to endorse my view that the mind-body problem is of limited interest to philosophers. The focus should be on what the mind does, not how it is constructed. But then I presume the latter issue is revealed by neuroscience. |
| 23906 | Courage from spirit is natural and unconquerable, as seen in the young [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The courage of spirit is the most natural kind; for spirit is unconquerable, which is why the young are the best fighters. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1229a27) | |
| A reaction: [thumos, presumably, as in Plato] I suppose Aristotle knows better than me, but I suspect the young are just the quickest and strongest. I'd rather be led by someone with experience than by someone who is young. |
| 20785 | Our conceptions arise from experience, similarity, analogy, transposition, composition and opposition [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Some conceptions are conceived on the basis of direct experience, some on the basis of similarity, some on the basis of analogy, some on the basis of transposition, some on the basis of composition, and some on the basis of opposition. | |
| From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.52 | |
| A reaction: These are examples of what I think of as 'philosophical faculties', probably not mentioned by either psychologists or neuro-scientists, but seen by philosophers as necessary preconditions for certain basic operations of thought. |
| 21799 | We just use the word 'faculty' when we don't know the psychological cause [Galen] |
| Full Idea: So long as we are ignorant of the true essence of the cause which is operating, we call it a 'faculty'. | |
| From: Galen (On the Natural Faculties [c.170], I.iv), quoted by Dominik Perler - Intro to The Faculties: a History 2 | |
| A reaction: This is probably the view of most modern neuroscientists. I want to defend the idea that we need the concept of a faculty in philosophy, even if the psychologists and neuroscientists say it is too vague for their purposes. |
| 23264 | Philosophers think faculties are in substances, and invent a faculty for every activity [Galen] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers conceive of faculties as things which inhabit 'substances' much as we inhabit houses, not realising that causes of events are conceived in relational terms. We therefore attribute as many faculties to a substance as activities. | |
| From: Galen (The soul's dependence on the body [c.170], Kiv.2.769) | |
| A reaction: This seems to demolish speculative faculties, but they were revived during the Enlightenment. I am happy to talk of 'philosophical faculties' where they are presumed to originate a type of thought, without commitment to any neuroscience. |
| 22107 | Sensations are transmitted to 'internal senses' in the brain, chiefly to 'phantasia' and 'imagination' [Aquinas, by Kretzmann/Stump] |
| Full Idea: Sensory species received in external senses are transmitted to 'internal senses', organs located in the brain. The most important of these for cognition are 'phantasia' and 'imagination' (part of phantasia), which produce and preserve 'phantasms'. | |
| From: report of Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologicae [1265]) by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 11 | |
| A reaction: This seems to make Aquinas a representative realist. I add this to my portfolio of philosophical faculties - those required by philosophy, rather than by psychology or neuroscience. |
| 24026 | Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There are four faculties in us which we can use to know: intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory. | |
| From: René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 12) | |
| A reaction: Philosophers have to attribute faculties to the mind, even if the psychologists and neuroscientists won't accept them. We must infer the sources of our modes of understanding. He is cautious about imagination. |
| 21800 | Descartes mentions many cognitive faculties, but reduces them to will and intellect [Descartes, by Schmid] |
| Full Idea: Although Descartes accepted a variety of cognitive faculties like the intellect, will, power of judgement, imagination, memory, and perception, he took them all to be ultimately reducible to different operations of the will and intellect. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (Meditations [1641], 4) by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 2 | |
| A reaction: In Med 4, it is most clear, when he reduces 'judgement' to will and intellect, which enable his to assent to an idea. Nietzsche saw Descartes' view as simplistic. |
| 21804 | Faculties are either fictions, or the abstract universals of ideas [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Faculties are either complete fictions, or nothing but metaphysical beings or universals, which are used to forming from particulars (as 'stoneness' is to a stone). | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 48S), quoted by Stephan Schmid - Faculties in Early Modern Philosophy 3 | |
| A reaction: So they are, at best, the sources of our concepts. Does that mean one faculty for each concept, or one huge concept-generating faculty? |
| 2869 | Kant's only answer as to how synthetic a priori judgements are possible was that we have a 'faculty'! [Nietzsche on Kant] |
| Full Idea: Kant asked himself: how are synthetic judgements a priori possible? And what, really, did he answer? By means of a faculty! | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil §011 |
| 9346 | Judgements which are essentially and strictly universal reveal our faculty of a priori cognition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Empirical universality is an increase in validity from most cases to all cases (e.g. all bodies are heavy), whereas strict universality belongs to a judgement essentially; this points to a special faculty of a priori cognition for it. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B004) | |
| A reaction: I would say that 'strict' universality arises not directly from some faculty, but from increasing degrees of refinement by abstraction. It is merely the iterations of a lower faculty, not the pure deliverances of a higher one. |
| 5572 | Reason has logical and transcendental faculties [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Reason has logical and transcendental faculties. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B355/A299) | |
| A reaction: The notion of a transcendental faculty is not entirely clear (despite all Kant's efforts), but it is certainly vital to grasp that rationality extends way beyond logic. The clearest example is induction, which is rational, despite its shortage of logic. |
| 24145 | Mind is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification, aimed at control [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The entire cognitive mechanism is a mechanism of abstraction and simplification - not aimed at knowing, but taking control of things. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[061]) | |
| A reaction: It is my view that we can explain our metaphysics in this way, though I am more realist than Nietzsche, because I think the world has created these capacities within us, so they fit the world. To control, you must know. |
| 23191 | Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: In our conscious intellect there must be an excluding drive that scares things away, a selecting one, which only permits certain facta to present themselves. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 34[131]) | |
| A reaction: I like this because he is endorsing the idea that philosophy needs faculties, which may not match the views of psychologists and neuroscientists. Quite nice to think of faculties as drives. |
| 14868 | Our primary faculty is perception of structure, as when looking in a mirror [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The primary faculty seems to me to be the perception of structure, that is, based upon the mirror. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [153]) | |
| A reaction: The point about the mirror makes this such an intriguingly original idea. Personally I like very much the idea that structure is our prime perception. See Sider 2011 on structure. |
| 23943 | Distinguishing reason from passion is based on an archaic 'faculty' theory [Solomon] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between reason and passion is based on an archaic 'faculty' psychology of the human soul. | |
| From: Robert C. Solomon (The Passions [1976], Intro.2) | |
| A reaction: I like faculties, for philosophical purposes, as explanatory tools to account for our metaphysical and conceptual framework, but this point is well made. The danger is that we impose sharp divisions, where reality is more complex. |
| 2539 | Mental modules for language, social, action, theory, space, emotion [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The prevailing view in cognitive psychology is that the mind consists of separate faculties, each with a certain cognitive task: linguistic, social, practical, theoretical, abstract, spatial and emotional. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.40) | |
| A reaction: 'Faculties' are not quite the same as 'modules', and this list mostly involves more higher-order activities than a modules list (e.g. Idea 2495). The idea that emotion is a 'faculty' sounds old-fashioned. |
| 20657 | There are 23 core brain functions, with known circuit, transmitters, genes and behaviour [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In 2014 the National Institutes of Mental Health published a list of 23 core brain functions and their associated neural circuitry, neurotransmitters and genes, and the behaviour and emotions that go with them. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Convergence [2016], 16 'Physics') | |
| A reaction: They were interested in the functions behind mental health, but I am interested in the functions behind our belief systems, which might produce a different focus. Sub-functions, perhaps. |
| 22135 | Our concepts can never fully capture reality, but simplification does not falsify [Boulter] |
| Full Idea: While the natural order is richer than our conceptual representations of it, nonetheless our concepts can be adequate to real singulars because simplification is not falsification. | |
| From: Stephen Boulter (Why Medieval Philosophy Matters [2019], 1) | |
| A reaction: I don't know if 'simplification' is one of the faculties I am trying to identify. I suspect it is a common factor among most of our intellectual faculties. I love 'simplification is not falsification'. Vagueness isn't falsification either. |