13 ideas
| 3798 | An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the overexamined life is nothing to write home about either. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: Presumably he means a life which is all theory and no practice. Compare Idea 343. |
| 3801 | Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: We must assume that something matters - that some things are for better and some things are for worse, for without that our assumed rationality would have nothing on which to get a purchase. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.1) | |
| A reaction: It does seem that rationality wouldn't exist as an activity without some value to motivate it. |
| 3802 | Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: You say you cannot imagine that p, and therefore declare that p is impossible. Mightn't that be hubris? | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.3) |
| 3795 | Causal theories require the "right" sort of link (usually unspecified) [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: In causal theories of knowledge and reference, the causal chain between object and thought must be of the "right" sort - the nature of rightness to be specified later, typically. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §3.3 n14) | |
| A reaction: This is now the standard objection to a purely causal account of reference. Which of the many causal chains causes the meaning? Knowledge of maths is a further problem for it. |
| 3797 | I am the sum total of what I directly control [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Control is the ultimate criterion of the self: I am the sum total of the parts I control directly. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: This looks awfully like a flagrant self-contradiction, and I think it is. It seems pretty obvious that there is at least a distinction between the bit or bits that do the controlling, and the bits that get controlled. |
| 3800 | You can be free even though force would have prevented you doing otherwise [Dennett, by PG] |
| Full Idea: If a brain implant would compel you to perform an action which you in fact freely choose, then you are free, but couldn't have done otherwise. | |
| From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §6.1) by PG - Db (ideas) |
| 3803 | Can we conceive of a being with a will freer than our own? [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Can I even conceive of beings whose wills are freer than our own? | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §7.3) |
| 3791 | Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: The creature who is not only sensitive to patterns in its environment, but also sensitive to patterns in its own reactions to patterns in its environment, has taken a major step. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §2.2) |
| 3794 | Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Foreknowledge is what permits control. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §3.2) |
| 3796 | The active self is a fiction created because we are ignorant of our motivations [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Faced with our inability to 'see' where the centre or source of our free actions is,…we exploit the gaps in our self-knowledge by filling it with a mysterious entity, the unmoved mover, the active self. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Elbow Room: varieties of free will [1984], §4.1) | |
| A reaction: I am convinced that there is no such things as free will; its origins are to be found in religion, where it is a necessary feature of a very supreme God. I don't believe for a moment that we need to believe in free will. |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 9111 | God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
| A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God. |
| 9112 | We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism. |