Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Thinking about Consciousness' and 'The Right and the Good'

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81 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
The goodness of opinions depends on their grounds, and corresponding degrees of conviction [Ross]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty
Knowledge is superior to opinion because it is certain [Ross]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
I prefer the causal theory to sense data, because sensations are events, not apprehensions [Ross]
Perceptual concepts can't just refer to what causes classification [Papineau]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 5. Commensurability
Two goods may be comparable, although they are not commensurable [Ross]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
The only serious mind-brain theories now are identity, token identity, realization and supervenience [Papineau]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
Maybe mind and body do overdetermine acts, but are linked (for some reason) [Papineau]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
Young children can see that other individuals sometimes have false beliefs [Papineau]
Do we understand other minds by simulation-theory, or by theory-theory? [Papineau]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain
Researching phenomenal consciousness is peculiar, because the concepts involved are peculiar [Papineau]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / a. Consciousness
Whether octopuses feel pain is unclear, because our phenomenal concepts are too vague [Papineau]
Our concept of consciousness is crude, and lacks theoretical articulation [Papineau]
We can’t decide what 'conscious' means, so it is undecidable whether cats are conscious [Papineau]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Maybe a creature is conscious if its mental states represent things in a distinct way [Papineau]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
The 'actualist' HOT theory says consciousness comes from actual higher judgements of mental states [Papineau]
Actualist HOT theories imply that a non-conscious mental event could become conscious when remembered [Papineau]
States are conscious if they could be the subject of higher-order mental judgements [Papineau]
Higher-order judgements may be possible where the subject denies having been conscious [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 6. Epiphenomenalism
The epiphenomenal relation of mind and brain is a 'causal dangler', unlike anything else [Papineau]
Maybe minds do not cause actions, but do cause us to report our decisions [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
Role concepts either name the realising property, or the higher property constituting the role [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
If causes are basic particulars, this doesn't make conscious and physical properties identical [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind
Identical objects must have identical value [Ross]
Supervenience can be replaced by identifying mind with higher-order or disjunctional properties [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
The completeness of physics is needed for mind-brain identity [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
Mind-brain reduction is less explanatory, because phenomenal concepts lack causal roles [Papineau]
Weak reduction of mind is to physical causes; strong reduction is also to physical laws [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
It is absurd to think that physical effects are caused twice, so conscious causes must be physical [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 6. Conceptual Dualism
Accept ontological monism, but conceptual dualism; we think in a different way about phenomenal thought [Papineau]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / c. Knowledge argument
Mary acquires new concepts; she previously thought about the same property using material concepts [Papineau]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Thinking about a thing doesn't require activating it [Papineau]
Consciousness affects bodily movement, so thoughts must be material states [Papineau]
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
Most reductive accounts of representation imply broad content [Papineau]
If content hinges on matters outside of you, how can it causally influence your actions? [Papineau]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
Verificationists tend to infer indefinite answers from undecidable questions [Papineau]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 2. Semantics
Teleosemantics equates meaning with the item the concept is intended to track [Papineau]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
Truth conditions in possible worlds can't handle statements about impossibilities [Papineau]
Thought content is possible worlds that make the thought true; if that includes the actual world, it's true [Papineau]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Aesthetic enjoyment combines pleasure with insight [Ross]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
Beauty is neither objective nor subjective, but a power of producing certain mental events [Ross]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism
Moral duties are as fundamental to the universe as the axioms of mathematics [Ross]
The beauty of a patch of colour might be the most important fact about it [Ross]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
Ross said moral principles are self-evident from the facts, but not from pure thought [Ross, by Dancy,J]
The moral convictions of thoughtful educated people are the raw data of ethics [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
Value is held to be either a quality, or a relation (usually between a thing and a mind) [Ross]
The arguments for value being an objective or a relation fail, so it appears to be a quality [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / c. Objective value
The thing is intrinsically good if it would be good when nothing else existed [Ross]
All things being equal, we all prefer the virtuous to be happy, not the vicious [Ross]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / e. Means and ends
An instrumentally good thing might stay the same, but change its value because of circumstances [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
We can ask of pleasure or beauty whether they are valuable, but not of goodness [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / b. Types of good
The three intrinsic goods are virtue, knowledge and pleasure [Ross]
The four goods are: virtue, pleasure, just allocation of pleasure, and knowledge [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / c. Right and good
'Right' and 'good' differ in meaning, as in a 'right action' and a 'good man' [Ross]
If there are two equally good acts, they may both be right, but neither a duty [Ross]
In the past 'right' just meant what is conventionally accepted [Ross]
Goodness is a wider concept than just correct ethical conduct [Ross]
Motives decide whether an action is good, and what is done decides whether it was right [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / d. Good as virtue
Virtue is superior to pleasure, as pleasure is never a duty, but goodness is [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / e. Good as knowledge
All other things being equal, a universe with more understanding is better [Ross]
Morality is not entirely social; a good moral character should love truth [Ross]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / c. Value of pleasure
We clearly value good character or understanding, as well as pleasure [Ross]
No one thinks it doesn't matter whether pleasure is virtuously or viciously acquired [Ross]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 3. Promise Keeping
Promise-keeping is bound by the past, and is not concerned with consequences [Ross]
Promises create a new duty to a particular person; they aren't just a strategy to achieve well-being [Ross]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / c. Particularism
Prima facie duties rest self-evidently on particular circumstance [Ross]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / h. Respect
People lose their rights if they do not respect the rights of others [Ross]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty
We should do our duty, but not from a sense of duty [Ross]
Be faithful, grateful, just, beneficent, non-malevolent, and improve yourself [Ross, by PG]
We like people who act from love, but admire more the people who act from duty [Ross]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative
An act may be described in innumerable ways [Ross]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
We should use money to pay debts before giving to charity [Ross]
25. Social Practice / C. Rights / 1. Basis of Rights
Rights were originally legal, and broadened to include other things [Ross]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights
Rights can be justly claimed, so animals have no rights, as they cannot claim any [Ross]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
Causation is based on either events, or facts, or states of affairs [Papineau]
Causes are instantiations of properties by particulars, or they are themselves basic particulars [Papineau]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 10. Closure of Physics
The completeness of physics cannot be proved [Papineau]
Modern biological research, especially into the cell, has revealed no special new natural forces [Papineau]
Determinism is possible without a complete physics, if mental forces play a role [Papineau]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / c. Conservation of energy
Quantum 'wave collapses' seem to violate conservation of energy [Papineau]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]