Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Problem of the Essential Indexical' and 'Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason'

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11 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / b. Elements of beliefs
12149 Indexicals are a problem for beliefs being just subject-proposition relations [Perry]
     Full Idea: The essential indexical is a problem for the view that belief is a relation between subjects and propositions conceived as bearers of truth and falsity.
     From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro')
     A reaction: My immediate reaction would be that it depends on how you conceive of 'propositions'. If they are objective, you have a problem. I take them to be subjective events in brains, and the indexical meaning to be evident within the proposition.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 9. Indexical Semantics
12151 If we replace 'I' in sentences about me, they are different beliefs and explanations of behaviour [Perry]
     Full Idea: If I leave a trail of sugar, and realise 'that I am making a mess', ...when we replace the word 'I' with other designations of me, we no longer have an explanation of my behaviour, or an attribution of the same belief, so it is an 'essential indexical'.
     From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro')
     A reaction: [compressed] A famous observation of Perry's, which leads him to challenge traditional accounts of belief and of propositions. I don't think I see a problem, if we have a thoroughly non-linguistic account of essentially unambiguous propositions.
18412 Indexicals individuate certain belief states, helping in explanation and prediction [Perry]
     Full Idea: We use sentences with indexicals or relativized propositions to individuate belief states, for the purposes of classifying believers in ways useful for explanation and prediction.
     From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Obvious')
     A reaction: He goes on to apparently connect this with some sort of moral integrity involved in 'owning up' to the fact that the person in question is you (who has spilled the sugar etc.).
19. Language / D. Propositions / 6. Propositions Critique
12150 Indexicals reveal big problems with the traditional idea of a proposition [Perry]
     Full Idea: The problem of the essential indexical reveals that something is badly wrong with the traditional doctrine of propositions.
     From: John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Prob')
     A reaction: See the reaction to 12149. The traditional view of propositions, or at least Russell's view, seems to be that they are same as facts, which strikes me as daft. I take propositions to be brain events, probably expressed in mentalese.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
20034 Intentions must be mutually consistent, affirm appropriate means, and fit the agent's beliefs [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman's three main norms of intention are 'internal consistency' (between a person's intentions), 'means-end coherence' (the means must fit the end), and 'consistency with the agent's beliefs' (especially intending to do and believing you won't do).
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: These are controversial, but have set the agenda for modern non-reductive discussions of intention.
20033 Intentions are normative, requiring commitment and further plans [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Intentions involve normative commitments. We settle on intended courses, if there is no reason to reconsider them, and intentions put pressure on us to form further intentions in order to more efficiently coordinate our actions.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: [a compression of their summary] This distinguishes them from beliefs and desires, which contain no such normative requirements, even though they may point that way.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / b. Types of intention
20026 Intention is either the aim of an action, or a long-term constraint on what we can do [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: We need to distinguish intention as an aim or goal of actions, and intentions as a distinctive state of commitment to future action, a state that results from and subsequently constrains our practical endeavours as planning agents.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 2
     A reaction: I'm not sure how distinct these are, given the obvious possibility of intermediate stages, and the embracing of any available short-cut. If I could mow my lawn with one blink, I'd do it.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
20032 Bratman rejected reducing intentions to belief-desire, because they motivate, and have their own standards [Bratman, by Wilson/Schpall]
     Full Idea: Bratman motivated the idea that intentions are psychologically real and not reducible to desire-belief complexes by observing that they are motivationally distinctive, and subject to their own unique standards of rational appraisal.
     From: report of Michael Bratman (Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason [1987]) by Wilson,G/Schpall,S - Action 4
     A reaction: If I thought my belief was a bit warped, and my desire morally corrupt, my higher self might refuse to form an intention. If so, then Bratman is onto something. But maybe my higher self has its own beliefs and desires.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
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?
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
15203 Tense is essential for thought and action [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: Tense plays a crucial role in thought and action.
     From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a
     A reaction: This is important, because much of our metaphysics is dominated by a detached 'scientific' description of reality, which is given a rather passive character. If processes take centre stage, which they should, then our own processes are part of it.
15204 Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
     Full Idea: In the new tenseless theory, no tensed token sentence can be equivalent to a tenseless token, because the former, unlike the latter, draws attention to the context in which it is tokened.
     From: report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a
     A reaction: So the problem about indexicals was worrying fans of the tenseless B-series view of time (and so it should). I'm inclined to translate sentences containing indexicals into their actual propositions, which tend to avoid them. 'Time/person of utterance'.