Philo. 3 - Philosophers And Their Theories

Front 1

Hume

Back 1

Copy Principle - one impression gives rise to every idea, but there is no one constant and invariable impression ~ self is a collection of impressions

- Single view at one time gives unity; many views at one time give the idea of number; single view at many times is identity, (middle ground between them)

- Bundle Theory - the self is a collection of perceptions; memory and imagination string them together, because of resemblance, (such as adding a small amount of mass)

Wanted to dissolve Cartesian picture of identity and manages to do so with bundle of perceptions, but thinks he leaves something else out

Front 2

Ryle

Back 2

Criticizes Priviledged Access Theory by saying that we fall short of what realizes what happens when clock stops or we are dreaming
- "I" as an indexical
- Semantic elusiveness - something is missing

Front 3

Nagel on the Self

Back 3

- How can a particular person be me?
- How can I be merely a particular person?

Semantic diagnosis - "I am TN" gets validity when it is considered in the context of a centerless world and does not depend on existence of further facts - "I am TN" is automatically and uninterestingly true
- Even when all of the public information is included, something stil l seems to be missing. We can understand it through an impersonal conception of the world which contains TN, because it accords no special position to TN, but is attached to and developed from the perspective of TN

Front 4

Russell

Back 4

- First problem: Ascribing things to other minds requires something beyond physics
- Argument from Analogy
- Second Problem: How know A always/usually causes B?

- He is a Cartesian - everything is merely a symptom; verbal expressions are just a small piece of evidence within a larger body of evidence

Front 5

Malcolm on Self

Back 5

- I can correlate three things: 1. Modificaiton of the Body; 2. Feelings; 3. Outward Expression
- How can say others have the same pain without knowing the same pain unless have criteria, (which would leave no need for argument from analogy)
- Says need to get rid view of Illusaion of Priority, so can look at similar facts and realize that circumstnaces, behavior, and utterances are actually criteria

Front 6

Strawson

Back 6

-Question: How know ascribe same consciousness to body or anything at all?
- Cartesians suppose that even if one cannot knowthat others have feelings and experiences, they still know that they do; (response: isn't is a requirement of ascribing consciousness to oneself that it can also be applied to others; Lichtenberg's challenge: Why ascribe thinking to "I"?)
- "No-subect" doctrine of the self - Does not makes sense that my experiences belong to body B

Primitiveness - Cartesians divide into body and mind, (primitve body and primitive mind), but Strawson says you should ascribe the same thing to both); it is mind-bodiness, which cannot be pulled apart, which is primitive

Front 7

Ayer

Back 7

1. Responsibility and free will are inherently linked
2. Either caused by chance or causation
3. Freedom and chance are not a possibility ~ freedom and causation must be the case ~ responsibility must be compaible with causation
- Causation is one event being determined by another, (not logical determination like Nagel)
- We are supposed to work within these constraints
- Ayer sweeps skeptical responses in which too many things are out of control under the rug

Front 8

Chisholm

Back 8

- Determinism is the view that actions are lawful consequences of a chain that extends back before our birth, (and I am not responsible for things before my birth)
- Moore - if could chosen to do otherwise, would have
- Chisholm says if determined, it doesn't matter if you had chosen, (still wouldn't have been able to)
- Incompatibility of responsibility and indeterminisms, also, because you aren ot responsible for anything if it is never caused
- Prime mover/moved - God is not caused to do anything, but he has causal power in the world, so we might have causal power like this

Front 9

Malcolm

Back 9

- Nonpurposive explanations are not true in all worlds - tapping knee is not necessarily true
- Purposive explanations are true in all worlds, (having goal B always requires action O)
- Since purposive are necessarily true, they cannot be contingent on nonpurposive, (cannot have hunger without cell starvatoin); nor can they coexist, because since nonpurposive explanations are sufficient, they rule out the purposive cause
- The only way to be rational is through purposive, (he would be forced to admit that he did not come to the belief through rational causes)

Front 10

Goldman

Back 10

- A continuous chain of events could be followed back so that nonpurposive are dependent on purposive
- Simultaneous nomic equivalents - the chain of events could be linked to C*, which is also necessary
- There is nothing in the nature of nonpurposive factors that rules out other factors

- Malcolm could repsond by saying linkage seems like an arbitrary band-aid
- Fails to point our rationality

Front 11

Libet

Back 11

-For his experiment: 1. No external cues; 2. Feel as though they wanted to make the action
- RP before actoin
- Triggering/Veto

Front 12

Frankfort

Back 12

- Two senses of "A wants to X": 1. A wants to do X, but it's not motivating; 2. A wants to do X, and it is motivating
- Second-order volitions vs. Second-order desires
- Second-order desires are like a therapist wanting to take heroine
- When a person acts, he is either moving by the will he wants or the will he wants to be without
- Unwilling addict has conflicting desires, whereas the wanton addict has different desires, but doesn't care

Front 13

Watson

Back 13

- Humean - reason is not a source of motivation
- Platonic - reason is a source of motivation; valuing is a result of reason and values provide reasons for action, (according to Watson, this is the roughtly correct view)

- Values and freedom are connected, because the free agent ahs the capacity to translate his vlues into action, (since values are a source of motivation according to Platonic)

- Second-order volitions ust increase thenumber of contenders ~ may not care about which of hte second-order desires win out

Front 14

Williams

Back 14

- Dimensional View of Time - Williams argues for this, where time is a 4th dimension on par with the 3 spatial dimensions; title is the myth of passage
- Question: Can you capture the nature of time with only this one view though?
- We tend to think of time as passing: 1. Seems to have direction; 2. If space is a dimension, it's hard to imagine why that is true; 3. If dimensional view, then it seems to make everything static

Front 15

Aristotle

Back 15

- Arguments against fatalism
- Law of Excluded Middle - we can't really accept that either a sea battle will occur or will not occur, because there seems to be a whole body of things that could lead to something , (such as your coat could fall off or get cut in half); they are future contingents that could happen, but do not have to happen; we can either either preserve this possibility by either rejecting the law of the exluded middle, which Aristotle rejects, or the law of bivalence

Front 16

Epicurus

Back 16

Death is not a misfortune, because of time and awareness

Front 17

Nagel

Back 17

Natural view: experience makes life worth living

Front 18

McTaggart

Back 18

- Change is the essence of time; without change, you do not have time, which is why he has the two series
- If only use earlier than/later than, all is fixed
- You need a-series to get change, but this is inherently self-contradictory, (because they cannot be all at the same time) ~ time is inherently self-contradictory