Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes' and 'The Human Body is a sort of Machine'

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4 ideas

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

4988	Folk psychology may not be reducible, but that doesn't make it false [Kirk,R on Churchland,PM]
	Full Idea: It may well be that completed neuroscience will not include a reduction of folk psychology, but why should that be a reason to regard it as false? It would only be a reason if irreducibility entailed that they could not possibly both be true.
	From: comment on Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981]) by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §3.9
	A reaction: If all our behaviour had been explained by a future neuro-science, this might not falsify folk psychology, but it would totally marginalise it. It is still possible that dewdrops are placed on leaves by fairies, but this is no longer a hot theory.

4987	Eliminative materialism says folk psychology will be replaced, not reduced [Churchland,PM]
	Full Idea: Eliminative materialism says our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena is a radically false theory, so defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced (rather than reduced).
	From: Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981], Intro)
	A reaction: It is hard to see what you could replace the idea of a 'belief' with in ordinary conversation. We may reduce beliefs to neuronal phenomena, but we can't drop the vocabulary of the macro-phenomena. The physics of weather doesn't eliminate 'storms'.

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?

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes

19376	A machine is best defined by its final cause, which explains the roles of the parts [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Any machine ...is best defined in terms of its final cause, so that in the description of the parts it is therefore apparent in what way each of them is coordinated with the others for the intended us.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Human Body is a sort of Machine [1683], p.290), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 3 'Machines'
	A reaction: We would use the 'function', an inherently teleological concept, and a concept which is almost indispensable for giving an illuminating description of the world. If nature is dispositional, it points towards things. Leibniz views persons as machines.