Ideas of Owen Flanagan, by Theme

[American, fl. 1992, Professor at Duke University.]

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1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom

5333	Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science

5334	We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction

5340	Explanation does not entail prediction

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation

5346	In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 2. Unconscious Mind

21833

Research suggest that we overrate conscious experience

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy

5341	Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system

16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity

5351	We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same

16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self

5353	The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography

5354	We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living

16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self

5349	For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will

5338	Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling

5344	Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will

5332	People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this

5345	We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way

17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique

5343	People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free

17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique

5347	Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation

17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism

5339	Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind

21834

Sensations may be identical to brain events, but complex mental events don't seem to be

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism

5342	Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions

5335	Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism

5348	Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character'

22. Metaethics / A. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value

21837

Morality is normative because it identifies best practices among the normal practices

22. Metaethics / A. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity

5336	Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing

22. Metaethics / A. Value / 2. Values / e. Altruism

21830

For Darwinians, altruism is either contracts or genetics

22. Metaethics / B. The Good / 2. Happiness / b. Eudaimonia

21835

We need Eudaimonics - the empirical study of how we should flourish

22. Metaethics / C. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism

5355	Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism

21831

Alienation is not finding what one wants, or being unable to achieve it

29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism

5350	The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE

29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism

21832

Buddhists reject God and the self, and accept suffering as key, and liberation through wisdom

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul

5352	The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds'