These are some of the questions that have been sent by e-mail over the years, and the responses to them. Note that the texts used and the philosophers read will vary from semester to semester, so I have removed any references to page numbers in order to minimize confusion.
Click on a name to go straight to questions about that philosopher.
Q:
I am writing in regards to my performance in your class. I am currently
disgusted with my quiz results. Before each of these quizes
I have felt that I was prepared and each time I have walked out of class
feeling that I have "aced it." I am taking your class Pass/Fail, because
Philosophy is something that I find extremely difficult. I hope that you
do not think that I have not worked hard, because that is not the case. I
am very worried about just recieving a "p" in your class. If you have any
suggestions I would appreciate them. I am sorry that I have not contacted
you sooner, but as I stated I have felt that I was doing better after each
quiz. Thank-you for your time.
A:
I'm sure you've worked hard. You need to figure out what's happening on
the quizzes. Generally, there are two possibilities: (1) You may feel
confident but in fact don't understand the material all that well, and the
quiz reflects your lack of understanding; or (2) You really do understand
the material very well, but always manage to screw up on the quiz. The
best way to figure out whether the problem is some variation of (1) or (2)
is to think about what happens when we go over the quiz answers in class.
Do the answers sound substantially different from what you were thinking?
Then it's probably (1). Do you find yourself saying, "Oh, yeah, I knew
that, that's exactly what I'd intended to put"? Then it's probably (2).
If the problem is some variation of (1), then I can try to help you understand the material better. Even if you can't make it to office hours, you can generally e-mail me questions about the text and expect an answer back within a day. Most people who have this problem simply haven't taken me seriously when I told them that everyone needs to read the text three or four times. If the problem is some variation of (2), then you need to learn how to take exams differently. Needless to say, it's an important skill for a lot of your courses. I may not be of much help on this issue, but feel free to tell me what you think is happening during the quizzes, and I may be able to offer some advice.
Q:
How does doubt deliver us from prejudice?
A:
Prejudice is any kind of opinion, usually erroneous, formed by jumping to
a conclusion without really having thought about it. If we engage in a
project of radical doubt like Descartes', then we will eliminate all
prejudice, since it is not based on a certain foundation. If, after
sweeping away all uncertain opinions, we do succeed in building up a
structure of certain knowledge, then we can rest assured that there will
be no prejudice in it.
Q:
"Archimedes, in order that he might draw the terrestrial
globe out of its place, and transport it elsewhere, demanded only that one point should be
fixed and immovable; in the same way I shall have the right to conceive high hopes if I am
happy enough to discover one thing only which is certain and indubitable." Please explain.
A:
Archimedes was an ancient Greek engineer and scientist. He investigated the properties of levers, among many other things. He supposedly was so impressed with the fact that a person could move a much heavier object with a lever that he made this statement: Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum (the fixed, immovable point against which a lever pivots), and I can move the earth. Descartes is pointing out that the key element here is the fulcrum: with it, anything is possible; without it, nothing is possible. He is drawing an analogy between Archimedes' situation and his own: if he can just find a fixed truth, a truth that is so absolutely certain that it could never be false, then he will be able to deduce a whole body of knowledge from it.
Q:
Could you tell me what is a "corporal object" for Descart?
A:
"Corporeal" = bodily = physical = material. Anything that exists in
space; anything that has size, shape, etc.
Q:
What does Decartes mean when he is talking about the evil genius?
A:
He wants to see how much of what always seemed true can be doubted. One
thing that has always seemed true is this: the reason we see and feel
objects is because there really are objects there. That certainly is the
best explanation of the sights, sounds, etc. that make up our experience.
But what if it weren't true -- that is, what if there were no objects
there at all? Then there would have to be some other explanation for our
experience being the way it is. If it's possible to come up with another
explanation, then it's possible that there really is no world with objects
in it.
Our experience indicates a world of objects. If you want to doubt whether there is any such world, then you have to be able to come up with an alternative explanation of your experience. One such alternative is the idea that a very powerful and deceitful being is fabricating all this experience and putting it into your mind. That shows that it's at least possible to doubt whether the world really exists.
Q:
I wanted to know if you could answer this question about Descartes
Meditation 1. It is on page 000 in the synopsis and page 000 where he
talks all about proving the existence of God, but I just do not
understand what exactly is his point. He says that he believes that God
created him, but he also says that people deny His existence, so I
can't really decide what his views are on this. If you could please
explain this to me, that would be great! Thank you very much.
A:
The talk about God on p. 000 is pretty complicated; you have to look at it
in context. He's just gone from introducing the idea that he could be
dreaming, to arguing that certain things would still be true even if he
were dreaming (mathematical truths, for example). This is where he is at
the bottom of the first column, p. 000.
The point is this: the possibility that I may be dreaming enables me to doubt the truth of almost everything I experience. But even if I'm dreaming, that doesn't change the fact that two plus three equals five. He also points out that the components of dreams have to have come from waking experience. So explaining away my experience by means of dreaming doesn't allow me to doubt absolutely everything. This leads Descartes to wonder if there isn't some way to achieve a more radical doubting of everything. Remember, he wants to clear away everything that can be doubted, in order to come up with at least one truth that can never be doubted.
Now we come to the top of the second column. He says, If God is all-powerful, couldn't he have created all of my experience in my mind, without there being any world at all outside my mind? And couldn't I therefore be wrong even about basic truths, like 2 + 3 = 5? Someone might object, But God is good, so he wouldn't let you be deceived like that. Descartes answers, Well, it's obvious that sometimes I am deceived (that is, I make mistakes). So if he would let me be deceived some of the time, why couldn't he let me be deceived all the time?
So Descartes has found an explanation that's better than dreaming for explaining away all his experience: God has created this experience in my mind, and there is no world out there. But then someone might object, "What if I don't believe that God exists? There goes your explanation." Descartes has an answer for this. If God doesn't exist, then I must have been created by something less perfect and less powerful than God. And the less powerful my creator, the more imperfect I will be, and thus the more likely to be mistaken about the true nature of my experience.
So, either way, whether God exists or not, it's possible that everything I believed to be true is really false.
Now, try going back over the text to see if you can recognize this argument in Descartes' own words.
Q:
In Meditation II page 000, paragraph 2 How does Descarte refute having a
body?
A:
There isn't much of a refutation on that page. He just says, in the last
paragraph in column 2, "I revolve all these things in my mind, and I find
none of which I can say that it pertains to me." That is, if the evil
genius is deceiving him about everything, then his body could be an
illusion, so it doesn't necessarily belong to him. That's the basic
argument, and it's elaborated in the first column of p. 000: see the
sentence, a little more than half-way down, beginning, "But I already know
for certain that I am..."
Q:
I know you answered this one in class,but I didn't get the answer down in
words I understand. What are the two main points of Meditation IV?
A:
1. Even though God, who is perfect, gave us the faculty of judgment, we
can still make errors, because he also gave us an infinite will, which
allows us to make decisions about things that we really aren't competent
to judge.
2. It is possible to know that some things are true if we know them clearly and distinctly and don't overstep the limits of judgement.
Q:
Over time we forget the proofs as to why we believe things as truth, but
we still beleive them as truths. Why? How does God play into it? Is it
simply because God is not a deceiver?
A:
This discussion takes place on p. 000, column one, last paragraph. The
basic idea is that I am utterly, absolutely convinced of some things that
I have looked at very carefully -- I understand them clearly and
distinctly.
I am so convinced of these things that the only way I could be wrong
is if God is deceiving me about all of reality. Since God couldn't do
that (He's no deceiver), I can rest assured that, if I once had a clear
and distinct understanding of something, then I really knew it, and that
something is true, even if I no longer possess the clear and disinct
understanding I once had.
Q:
I don't really understand what Decartes is trying to prove when he uses
the example of the chiliagon. I know that he can't imagine it in his
head, yet he can imagine a triangle. What is he trying to accompish by
not being able to imagine a chiliagon?
A:
He's demonstrating that there's a difference between imagination and "pure
intellection", or what we might call the activity of pure thinking. He
can't imagine a chiliagon, yet he can think of it and understand it;
therefore, imagination and understanding are two different things. He
gets to the point at the end of the paragraph: imagination requires
something extra besides understanding, something non-mental. In the long
run he's going to use this idea in his argument that his body and other
material objects must exist.
Q:
What is Decartes trying to prove with the pilot to a vessel idea?
A:
That his mind has a special relationship with his body. It's not
like
the relationship of a pilot to a vessel, and he uses this fact to
illustrate how unique the relationship is.
Q:
can you explain to me again how Descartes concept of self-identity is
supposed to make an external soul possible.
A:
Again, that's "eternal". The key is in the difference between the two
substances, matter and spirit. Since they are so completely different,
the laws (of nature) that apply to one don't necessarily apply to the
other. So if the self is a thinking thing, which is spirit, then it
doesn't necessarily suffer the same disintegration after death as does the
body, which is matter.
Q:
In regards to Tuesday's lecture on Locke and the difference between
ideas and qualities Are white, cold, and roundness ideas or qualities?
A:
P. 000, paragraph 8: "Thus a snowball having the power to produce in us
the ideas of white, cold, and round,--the power to produce those ideas in
us, as they are in the snowball, I call qualities".
We have sensations of white, cold, and round. Those are ideas -- part of our experience. The snowball has something in it that causes us to have those sensations. This power to produce ideas in us is what he calls qualities. Thus, a certain quality in the snowball produces the sensation of white in us.
Now, it happens that with the primary qualities we are accustomed to calling the qualities and the sensations they produce by the same name. That is, we could say that the idea of roundness in our minds is produced by the quality of roundness in the snowball. But it would be a mistake to say that the idea of white (or cold) in our minds is produced by the quality of white (or cold) in the snowball. There is no quality of white or cold; there is nothing in the actual snowball that remotely resembles our sensations of white and cold.
Q:
On pg 000 (10) coulour, sound, and taste were linked with secondary
qualities. However, I thought those three senses were ideas, not
qualities according to class discussion. What would be an example of a
secondary quality? Locke only describes it as a power.
A:
Locke's wording is very confusing here. "Secondly, such qualities which
in truth are nothing in the objects themselves but powers to produce
various sensations in us [by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk,
figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts,] as colors, sounds,
tastes, etc." For a moment, take out the part that's in brackets. Then
secondary qualities are "powers to produce various sensations in us, as
colors, sounds, tastes, etc." The part in brackets just says how those
sensations are produced. So you're right, color taste and sound are
ideas, and secondary qualities are the powers that produce those ideas.
It's not easy to give an example of a secondary quality, since they don't have simple names. The example I used in class was the arrangement of molecules on the surface of an object, reflecting light in such a way that a particular perception of color is produced in us.
Q:
I don't understand why color would be a secondary quality. Does it have
something to do with secondary qualities being primary qualities of tiny
things?
A:
You mean, "why color would not be a secondary quality." You're right,
secondary qualities are primary qualities of tiny, imperceptible
particles. But the important point is this: qualities (primary or
secondary) belong to material objects, while color is only an idea, and
can exist only in a mind. An object can have a secondary quality that
causes the idea of color in your mind, but the quality itself is
not color, and color is not a quality.
Q:
Help!! I am trying to figure out the answers to the study guide for our
quiz on Thursday and I can't seem to grasp to concept of Locke's theory of
the fire and warmth. I know that the idea of warmth is from the fire, but
the the sensation of pain is in the fire. What does he mean when he says
that a fire doesn't actually contain warmth?
A:
Look carefully at paragraph 16. "Flame is denominated hot and
light", that is, we normally call fire hot, "from the ideas they produce
in us." That is, we say fire is warm because it makes us feel warm.
Qualities like warmth "are commonly thought to be the same in those bodies
that produce those ideas that are in us, the one [the quality in the
object] the perfect resemblance of the other [the idea in our minds]"; so
we normally think that the fire has warmth in it, and that it is just like
the warmth we feel. People would think you're crazy if you say otherwise.
But, "consider that the same fire that, at one distance produces in us the sensation of warmth, does, at a nearer approach, produce in us the far different sensation of pain". That is, the warmth that you feel from the fire gradually turns into pain as you get closer to it. Once a person considers this, he has to ask himself whether he has any reason to say "that this idea of warmth, which was produced in him by the fire, is actually in the fire; and his idea of pain, which the same fire produced in him the same way, is not in the fire." This, of course, is what we normally say: there is warmth in the fire, but there is no pain in the fire.
The question is, why should we talk this way? Why should we treat warmth and pain differently? The example is supposed to show that there is no reason to treat them differently, since the only difference between warmth and pain is in how close you stand to the fire. Why should you say that the sensation you feel when you stand at a distance from the fire is just like something that's in the fire, while the sensation that you feel when you're close to the fire is not like anything in the fire? Locke is arguing that there is no reason to do this, that warmth is exactly like pain, a sensation. And if we think it's absurd to say, "The fire has pain in it", then it's equally absurd to say, "The fire has warmth in it."
Q:
I am a little bit confused about primary and secondary qualities. I think
that I am confusing them with simple and complex ideas. Are primary
qualities the basic compounds of objects? Are they the molecular
structures that allow us to percieve the object?
A:
The basic explanation of primary and secondary qualities comes at the
bottom of p. 000. All qualities, primary and secondary, are part of
material objects. The main difference between primary and secondary
qualities is in the kinds of ideas (sensations) they produce in us (the
sensations corresponding to each are listed in the last two paragraphs of
p. 000). And the important thing about those sensations is that one group
of sensations (the ones caused by primary qualities) resemble the material
objects themselves, while the other (caused by secondary qualities) do
not. Thus, when we perceive size or shape, we perceive something that
also actually exists in the material world, unprocessed by human
perception. But when we perceive color or sound, that is something that
is purely the product of human perception and exists only in our
experience.
The distinction between simple and complex ideas isn't related to the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. A simple idea can be caused by either a primary or a secondary quality; the color red is a simple idea, as is the shape of a sphere, whereas the idea of a red sphere is a complex idea, composed of two simple ideas.
Q:
My other question is in chapter eight, page 000. What is he saying about
the third sort? I understand what his point is, but is he trying to fit
that third point under the catagory of secondary qualities?
A:
Not really. Every quality is basically the power to affect something
else. Primary and secondary qualities have the power to affect our minds
(give us sensations), while the third sort has the power to affect other
material objects (the sun has the power to melt wax). I don't think
there's any point to mentioning the third sort, except to emphasize that
all qualities are nothing but the power to affect something else.
Q:
On pg 000 (25) what point is Locke trying to make about the
sunburn and powers of the sun?
A:
We wouldn't say that the skin turns red because the sun has red in it.
Likewise, we shouldn't say that we feel heat because the sun has heat in
it.
Q:
On the same page (26) he concludes "The former of these, I think,
may be called secondary qualities immediately perceivable: the latter,
secondary qualities, mediately perceivable." I am confused on what Locke
meant by this.
A:
This isn't important. The first kind are qualities that produce changes
directly in us (sensations produced in the mind). The second are
qualities that produce changes in other objects, which we then perceive.
The changes aren't done directly to the mind, but indirectly by means of
another object.
Q:
I have a couple of questions. The first is a question of bare power vs.
bare quality. I am wondering if you could help me out with the
differences.
A:
It's really just our way of talking about things. Qualities are powers:
a quality, primary or secondary, is the power to produce certain
sensations in us. Another way of putting this is to say that a quality
produces a change in the mind. Now, we don't normally think of qualities
in this cause-and-effect way; we just assume that our sensations are the
qualities themselves. We don't normally think of the quality of shape as
being a power to cause something to happen in our minds.
"Bare powers" are those qualities that we recognize as causing changes in other objects (the power of the sun to melt wax, for example). They're the same as the other qualities (basically, the power to produce a change in something else); the only difference is that we normally think of them as powers, because the change is produced in something other than ourselves.
Locke's point is that they're all the same sort of thing, but that our normal way of talking and thinking about them prevents us from seeing that qualities are really powers to make changes in the mind in the same sense as the sun's power to melt wax.
Q:
My other question is from Locke, when we see two colors at
two different times in an object, what is that? Pure coincidence, quality,
an idea?
A:
Well, if the object hasn't been changed in the meantime, it shows that
color is not a quality belonging to a material object -- otherwise the
color would have to remain the same as long as the object was unchanged.
Q:
For Locke, sound is just a vibration, right?
A:
No, sound is a sensation that we experience. It's caused by a vibration
in the air.
Q:
On page 000 (4 III) Locke discusses angles and lines, what was his
point on the existance of other material things?
A:
While we don't need our senses to do geometric proofs (as Descartes
noted), we use diagrams to demonstrate them. This indicates that we must
be able to trust our senses to some degree, since it wouldn't make sense
to consider a theorem to be true while at the same time denying the
reality of the diagrams we used to prove it.
Q:
Could you please explain the circular argument for Locke again? Please.
A:
Ok. First keep in mind that this is a criticism that other philosophers
make against Locke's theory of personal identity.
Put simply, Locke's theory says that if a person in the present remembers a past experience, then that person is the same person as the one who had the experience in the past. This is what makes you the same person over time: your ability to remember your own past experiences.
The problem is that sometimes people have false memories: for example, as the result of hypnosis, or from insanity. (Locke doesn't deal with this problem.) We wouldn't want to say that an insane person who claims to remember Napoleon's experiences is really Napoleon.
So, to avoid this problem, Locke should add that the person remembering the past experience must have real memories, not false ones, in order to be the same person as the one who had the experience in the past. What counts as a real memory? Only one that was caused by actually being there, having the experience.
But this means that, in order to know that a person is really remembering a past experience, we would have to know that the person had been there having the experience. That is, we would have to know that the person with the memory was the same person as the one who had the experience in the past. But this is just what memory is supposed to establish.
So, according to Locke's theory, memory constitutes personal identity: if you remember a past experience, then you're the same person who had that experience. But this is true only if the memory is real. The problem is that the only way to tell a real memory from a false one is if personal identity is already established.
Once more: We can know that Person A is the same as Person B only if we know that Person A has real memories of Person B's experiences. But we can know that A's memories are real only if we know that A is the same as B. So we wind up not able to know anything. It's a circle that just keeps going around and around, and never gets anywhere.
Q:
I'm having difficulty with Locke's argument to the problem of
self-identity when interrupted by sleep. I understand how memory makes
me the same person over time because no one could have the memory but how
does Locke answer the question.
A:
You find Locke's discussion of this on p. 000, starting at the middle. He
mentions a bunch of ways that we aren't always self-conscious, including
sleep; "our consciousness being interrupted, and we losing the sight of
our past selves, doubts are raised whether we are the same thinking thing,
i.e. the same substance or no." He's challenging Descartes here:
if there are periods when I'm not thinking, then how can I be the same
thinking thing all the time? So being the same thinking thing must not
be what makes me the same person over time.
Q:
it would be greatly appreciated if you could somehow explain
briefly the bottom paragraph on 000, i'm totally lost. same
conscioussness, different body?
A:
Well, what Locke actually says is, "If the same consciousness...can be
transferred from one thinking substance to another, it will be possible
that two thinking substances may make but one person." This is thinking
substance -- spirit or soul -- not body. And it's a big "If". If it were
somehow possible for a single consciousness to be transferred from one
soul
to another, then the same person would have occupied both souls. He
doesn't say, "at the same time", and it really wouldn't make sense to have
two souls be the same person simultaneously.
Q:
what's the difference between one soul lasting through several
different lives and the same person living in different bodies
A:
Some people think that there's only a finite number of souls in the world,
and that one soul can live over and over again in different people -- for
example, someone dies and her soul leaves and enters a baby about to be
born. Locke says it doesn't matter whether you have your own unique soul
or one that belonged to many past individuals; when it comes to being the
person that you are, all that counts is your consciousness and memory.
Same deal with the body; it doesn't matter whether you always have the same one, as long as you have the same consciousness and can remember your past experiences. It's not sameness of either soul or body that makes a person the same person over time; it's having the same consciousness.
Back to top.Q:
I don't understand what Berkley is trying to prove with the two hands in
the water example.
A:
Let me paraphrase the argument. The first
two premises are claims that Hylas makes; premises 3-6 are used by
Philonous to prove that premise 2 (at least) can't be true.
You, Hylas, claim that
Q:
What "skeptisism" do Hylas and Philonous use against each other?
A:
Each accuses the other of being a skeptic. The definition Hylas gives
of "skeptic" is, "One that doubts of everything", that is,
someone who doesn't believe anything is true or real. Each one accuses
the other of believing that the objects of our experience aren't real.
Hylas believes the objects of our experience are real only if they're material objects. Philonous believes there are no material objects. Anyone who believes both these statements is a skeptic. Each speaker is convinced that one of the statements is true, and when he hears that the other speaker believes the other statement, he concludes that the other speaker believes both statements, i.e. is a skeptic.
Q:
What qualifies as something real for Hylas and Philonous?
A:
For Hylas: an object of our experience is real if it's a material
object. For Philonous: something is real if it's perceived, i.e.
experienced by some mind.
Q:
In the beginning the two talk about sensible things. Are sensible
things the same as secondary qualities?
A:
No. At least, not for Berkeley. Look around you. Sensible things are
all that stuff.
Q:
How do we have an idea of an object if there is no material object to base
that idea off of?
A:
But you don't have an idea of an object. The idea you have
is the object. The object is exactly that which you are
experiencing. It is not something that is causing the experience -- it
is the experience.
Q:
I don't understand the argument the "sensations caused by primary
qualities" are the same as those caused by secondary qualities. When he
discusses the termite I see what he is saying how our foot looks huge to
the termite and not so big to us but does this still deny the fact that
there is an actual object in the material world. No matter how big or
small there is still an object that has some size. This primary quality
still exists or does it?
A:
Sure, every object has a size. But recall that a material object would be
an object that exists on its own independently of all minds, and that it
would be what it is regardless of what anyone perceives. If size is a
quality of such an object, then as long as the object itself doesn't
change, its size must remain the same, no matter what anyone perceives.
It would have to be either big or small, but the material object itself
couldn't be both at the same time. Yet the foot is both big and small. So
if there were such things as material objects, size couldn't belong to
them, i.e. be a primary quality.
Q:
HOw does Philonous argue against the claim that our ideas are just copies
of external objects? (study guide question I never understood)
A:
This is a reference to the argument on p. 000. See in the first column,
where Philonous says, "you say our ideas do not exist without the mind,
but they are copies...of certain originals that do?" The argument
continues on until a little more than halfway through the second column.
Q:
Does Berkeley say that secondary qualities are nothing but ideas
of primary qualities, so they are the same?
A:
Berkeley doesn't believe that anything is an idea "of" something, in the
sense you mean, since ideas are the only real things. Remember, ideas are
not copies of some things that are non-ideas (material objects).
You want to look at Berkeley's argument on pp. 000-000 (paragraphs 9, 10, 14 and 15). He takes Locke's argument that the ideas produced by secondary qualities aren't like anything outside the mind and extends it to ideas produced by primary qualities. This leads to the conclusion that nothing within the mind could be like anything outside the mind, and since we only know that which is within the mind, it makes no sense to talk of anything outside the mind.
Q:
Does he also believe that there are no qualities or objects
because nothing exists outside of the mind?
A:
There certainly are objects, and they have qualities. But they're all
ideas. There are no material objects, though.
Q:
I don't understand the statement "objects don't cause sensations
they are sensations." If there are no objects to cause these sensations
then where are they coming from? If God is causing the sensation of an
object, then are my own sensations derived from the sensation that God put
within me.
A:
Why isn't it enough that the sensations are put there by God? Why do you
want to derive sensations from those sensations? Your own sensations
are the ones that are put there by God.
Q:
I think that I have a decent understanding of the main difference between
succesion of related objects and identity. A succession of related
objects is when we think all perceptions in the mind are connected in some
way but there is no real connection. Identity is really a quality which
people associate to a series of perceptions. I don't understand Hume's
last statement "of the union of ideas in the imagination when we reflect
on them."
A:
"Succession of related objects" is really simple. It just means that we
experience a series of things, one after another, that are very similar to
one another. Identity, on the other hand, refers to our continuous
experience of a single unchanging thing.
For example, suppose you plant an acorn outside your front door, and walk by it every day when you leave the house. Each day you'll see something that's almost exactly like what you saw the day before, but it's actually a little different (a sapling that's 2mm higher than the day before). Strictly speaking, you don't see the same identical thing each day: instead, you see a succession of things that are very similar ("related", as Hume says).
Another example he uses is a boat that has its deck replaced, one plank at a time, then its sails, masts, etc. If this process goes on day by day and takes several years, you think that each day you see the same boat, even though after ten years the boat might not have a single piece remaining from the original.
This is an example of the confusion Hume refers to: if the objects in succession are similar enough, we tend to perceive them not as different related objects, but as one thing. That is, we confuse a succession of related objects with identity.
This, he says, must be what is going on with personal identity: since our idea of self can't come from an impression, it must be the result of some mistake. We think that we are a single continuous self, when in fact there is only a succession of related perceptions. As for "the union of ideas in the imagination when we reflect on them", that's just a way of expressing how we create the notion of cause and effect by drawing a connection between perceptions -- a connection we create ourselves, and don't directly perceive.
Q:
For Hume, would the sun coming up every day be an example of the
principle of induction? If not what would be one?
A:
No. The principle of induction is a principle of knowledge. Whether the
sun comes up every day has nothing to do with what we think or know. Now,
our belief that the sun will come up tomorrow is based on the
principle of induction. That is, we believe that if, given the correct
set of conditions, the same event always occurs, then we are entitled to
conclude that, given the same set of conditions in the future, the event
will happen again. Thus the principle of induction entitles us to
conclude that, barring some astronomical catastrophe, the sun will rise
tomorrow.
Q:
Does he also believe that all of our reasoning from experience is
ultimately based on reasoning alone? If not, then what is all of our
reasoning from experience based on?
A:
No. Ultimately it's based on an unfounded assumption. ("Unfounded" means
you can't give reasons for it.) Can you figure out what that unfounded
assumption is?
Q:
In the second to the last paragragh on page 000 Hume says that memory
discovers personal identity by showing us the relationship of cause and
effect amoung our differnt perceptions. If that is true, then how come
at the top of page 000 he says that the understanding never observes any
real connection amoung objects, and that even the union of cause and
effect, when strictly examined, resolves itself into a customary
association of ideas. Is the understanding like the memory?
A:
You should already be familiar with Hume's argument about
cause and effect -- how it's not something we can directly perceive, but
rather an assumption that we build into our perception of the world, on
the basis of mere habit. That's the second point you mention above.
So, is the memory able to detect something that the understanding can't, namely, a real relation of cause and effect? No. He's referring to where we get our idea of cause and effect, that is, from repeatedly seeing one event follow another and then habitually expecting the second event whenever the first one occurs. It wouldn't be possible for us to do this without memory, i.e. without remembering that the last time Event A occurred Event B followed, and so on. This is what he means when he says, in the same paragraph, that we acquire this notion of causation from memory.
What exactly is "the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions"? Well, we always expect that the decision to open our eyes will be followed by some visual sensation, that willing the foot to step forward will result in a sensation of walking forward, etc. These (deciding, seeing, willing, feeling motion) are all perceptions, and we naturally think of them in terms of cause and effect (seeing is the effect of willing one's eyes to open, etc.). Our sense of self comes from this connection that we draw among all our perceptions.
But, just as with all cause and effect, Hume says that when you get right down to it, there is only the succession of different perceptions, and our habit of expecting a certain perception to follow another. So to say that memory shows us the relation of cause and effect among our different perceptions, is just to say that through memory we learn that, for example, this perception of willing is always followed by that visual perception, and in time this succession becomes something that we habitually expect. Memory plays the same role here as it does with cause and effect among external objects.
It was a little misleading for Hume to refer to this as "showing us" something that we can't perceive. That may have been the source of your problem.
Q:
We have seen in class that the problem of "Materialism" is that,on the
contrary to "Dualism", no such things as the "Mind" exist.
Do Materialists, nevertheless, can cope with this problem, and if yes,
how do they do it?
A:
But this is not a problem for materialism; this is just what materialism
claims, that there is no such thing as "mind". The problem for
materialism is that people still think they have minds; people believe
that when they talk about the mind they are talking about something real.
Materialism has to answer the question, "What are we really talking about,
when we talk about the mind?" Each materialist theory has a different way
of answering this question, i.e. of coping with the problem that it seems
to make sense to speak of the mind.
Q:
In Behaviorism, I don't really understand the second flaw it poses,
"detail the multitracked disposition...".
A:
Behaviorism claims that any mental term can be translated into a
description of a multi-tracked behavioral disposition, without making
reference to any internal unobservable mental states. But it turns out
that any really complete description must make use of terms like
"believes", "is not deceiving", etc. Since the whole point of behaviorism
is to do without such mental terms, it can't succeed.
Q:
The Identity Theory, What are the aurgements for it, I can not seems to
grasp them?
A:
It would help here if you were more specific, since Churchland gives four
different arguments. The general idea is that it makes the most sense to
understand ourselves as part of the physical world (i.e. materialism is
true), and that neuroscience is continually making progress in explaining
our mental life.
Q:
What does Churchland mean when he says, " Those systems were selected for
because of the many advantages (ultimately, the reproductive advantage)
held by creatures whose behaviot was thus controlled."? In his second
argument.
A:
The claim he's defending is that all the causes of human behavior can (in
principle) be explained by neuroscience. We know that the brain controls
our behavior; what explanation can we give for this fact? Is it because
the mind controls our behavior by means of the brain? A better
explanation is the one given by evolutionary theory: Our brains evolved as
they did because of natural selection, because of the survival and
reproductive advantages that come with having a brain that controls our
actions. According to this explanation, the brain is not the tool by
which something else (the mind) causes our behavior, but is itself the
cause of our behavior.
Q:
In Eliminative Materialism, I understand that eliminative materialism
doesn't believe that there is any such thing as mental states, but what
are the mental states they are talking about?
A:
Anything that refers to the mind: thoughts, beliefs, sensations, emotions,
etc. These are all examples of confused language, according to
eliminative materialism.
Q:
Could you please explain to me the significance of the Coke machine in
association with functionalism?
A:
The purpose of the Coke machine example is to illustrate the difference
between a functional description of something and a physical description
of it. The diagram I put on the board shows the two possible internal
states of the machine, and it shows that the states are defined entirely
in terms of input, internal change of state, and output. [Note: This
example and diagram are based loosely on a similar example by Jerry
Fodor.]
| State 1 | State 2 | |
|---|---|---|
| Input 1 | Output 0 Go to State 2 |
Output 1 Go to State 1 |
| Input 2 | Output 1 Go to State 1 |
Output 2 Go to State 1 |
Coke costs a dollar
Input 1 = $0.50
Input 2 = $1.00
Output 0 = nothing
Output 1 = 1 Coke
Output 2 = 1 Coke + $0.50
Each box in the table shows what happens when the machine is in a certain state and gets a certain input: it has a certain ouput and either changes state or remains in the same state. We could give these states names, such as "Waiting for a dollar" (State 1), or "Waiting for fifty cents" (State 2), but the important point is that each state can be completely understood strictly in terms of these three items: input, change to another state, and ouput.
This is an example of a functional description. Anything that instantiates this program -- that is, anything that functions in exactly this way, responding to this input with that output and change of state -- that is, anything that can be in State 1 or State 2, as defined above -- counts as a Coke machine, according to functionalism. It doesn't matter whether the thing doing this is made of metal or wood, or consists of a person standing behind a table with a tub full of Cokes and ice. Anything that is able to process input according to the table above is able to be in either of the two states, which are states of a Coke machine.
Now, finally, the point. Mental states, claims functionalism, can also be defined completely in terms of input, change of state, and output. A definition of a mental state, of course, would be much more complex than the definitions of Coke machine states above. One probably couldn't draw a table like mine to illustrate it. But that's not important. The important thing is that if this claim is true, then any system that fulfills the definition -- that is, processes input in the right way -- can be said to be in that mental state. A human brain obviously is able to instantiate the definitions of lots of mental states; but conceivably a computer could, too.
Q:
And could you also explain sensory qualia.
A:
"Qualia" is the plural of "quale". One can talk about various aspects of
a sensation -- for example, the visual sensation of red. There are the
particular wavelengths of light that produce red. There are the
combinations of neural activity in the visual cortex of the brain that
happen whenever the sensation happens. And there is also what the person
having the sensation is aware of when introspecting. It is the latter
quality, what the sensation is like for the person having it, that is the
quale of the sensation. The quale of a color is what you're aware of in
your experience when someone asks you, "What color is the shirt that
you're looking at right now?" The quale of red is what red is like for
you when you see it.
The point of talking about sensory qualia is this: the functionalist definition of a mental state, which claims to be a complete definition, doesn't say anything about qualia. If qualia are essential to a sensation (meaning, it wouldn't be the sensation of red if it didn't have that quale), then functionalism's definition of a mental state isn't complete. So, this is a problem that functionalism has to solve.
Q:
According to functionalism, the science of psychology should be
independent of physical sciences such as nueroscience.
If you could explain why we would appreciate it!
A:
P. 000, the paragraph beginning, "[In 1984] functionalism [was] probably
the most widely held theory of mind...." Consider what the physical
sciences deal with. Neuroscience deals with the brain, with its cells and
chemicals; atomic physics deals with protons, neutrons, etc. Every
physical science deals with a particular category of physical thing. Now,
consider how functionalism defines a mental state. The functionalist
definition of any mental state is strictly in terms of input, output, and
other mental states, or it could be in terms of information processing.
Functionalist definitions make no reference to the particular thing that
has the mental state. A functionalist definition of the psychological
state "fear of failure" will be exactly the same for a human brain, a
computer, a space alien, or whatever else might be capable of such a
state, and it will make no reference to brains, computers, or aliens. So,
according to functionalism, the science of mental states (psychology)
deals with something that is independent of the human brain, a computer,
etc.; thus psychology cannot be considered the same as the sciences that
study the physical structure of the human brain,
computers, space aliens, etc.
Back to top.
Q:
when I was reviewing I found I had some trouble with the paragraph on p.
229, beginning with Nevertheless the analogy... I thought I understood it
when I first read it, but now I am more confused. Thank you
A:
Look at the last sentence of the previous paragraph -- actually, look over
those first two paragraphs. The point is that there is a parallel, or an
analogy, between the dispositions that logical behaviorism posits and
the dispositions of physical objects. "Fragility" is a disposition of
glass: the disposition "fragility" can be defined as, "If it is struck,
then it breaks." But a piece of glass is always fragile, it has the
disposition, even if it just sits there and isn't struck. And when it is
struck, and breaks, we can say, "It broke because it was fragile," or,
"Its fragility caused it to break."
Now, the logical behaviorist likes this analogy, because it means that dispositions can be causes, and that means that we can explain human behavior by means of mental causes (dispositions), without having to believe that minds exist. Dispositions, remember, can be defined completely in terms of environmental stimulus and behavioral response, input and output -- all of which is publicly observable. As Fodor argues on p. 000, one big problem with radical behaviorism is that it denies any such thing as mental causes, while in ordinary life we talk and think about mental causes all the time ("his belief that his car needs gas caused him to put gas in the tank"). So the logical behaviorist thinks that this problem is solved, that we can explain behavior by referring only to what's publicly observable and yet talk sensibly about mental causes.
In the paragraph you mention, Fodor raises some doubts about whether the problem really is solved. True, we can say, "Its fragility caused the glass to break", but we can also say, "Being hit by a hammer caused it to break", or "Falling over caused it to break", "A loud soprano caused it to break", etc. We tend to think that "being hit by a hammer" is a more basic cause of the glass breaking than "fragility" is. This is what he means by "event-event" causation: one event is the hammer hitting it, the other event is the glass breaking. Our understanding of the physical world would be a lot poorer if we couldn't think in terms of event-event causation, if the only causes we knew of were dispositions. But that's just the problem with logical behaviorism: it can posit only dispositions, not event-event causation. This is because, when it comes to mental states, event-event causation would mean one mental state causing another, which would involve things happening completely internally, with nothing publicly observable. And that would defeat the whole purpose of behaviorism.
Q:
Is the difference between logical behaviorism and functionalism the
fact that logical behaviorism does not provide a theory on psychological
explanations that create mental processes?
A:
I'm not entirely sure just what you're asking. Explanations don't create
mental processes, do they?
Think of the difference between radical and logical behaviorism. Radical behaviorism claims that nothing happens between input (environmental stimulus) and output (behavior): there are no mental causes of behavior. Logical behaviorism acknowledges that there are mental causes, namely, dispositions to behave in certain ways. These dispositions, though, can be described entirely in terms of stimulus and behavior, without any use of mental terms -- so it's still a kind of behaviorism.
Now, functionalism agrees that sometimes environmental input and be havioral output are important parts of the description of a mental state, but it claims that there are also things going on internally (mental states) that cannot be described strictly in terms of input and output. These mental states are defined relative to other mental states.
Here's an example. You're reading the newspaper and you come across a headline about a recent archaeological discovery. You start reading the article and suddenly remember that there's a paper due in your archaeology class tomorrow. You realize you haven't started the reading for the paper, and you start to panic. In frantically searching for a way out of your dilemma, you remember that you dropped the archaeology class last week. So you smile and go back to the newspaper.
Now, how do we define "panic" in this case? It doesn't seem to make sense to refer only to input -- seeing the newspaper headline -- and output -- smiling and returning to the newspaper -- because seeing the headline didn't cause the panic, and the smile wasn't a result of the panic, either. So the functionalist will argue that logical behaviorism, which is committed to defining every mental state as a tendency to respond to a certain input with a certain output, will be unable to admit that you were feeling panic. Instead, the functionalist says, we have to define the mental state "panic" in this case as the result of another mental state (remembering the paper due), and the cause of yet another (searching frantically for a way out). Functionalism claims that ultimately all mental states can be defined just in these cause-and-effect terms.
I hope that this is at least close to the question you wanted to ask.
Q:
Is the difference between identity theory and functionalism the
fact that identiry theory does not have to have an output or behaviorial
effect?
A:
No. Neither one really requires an output or behavior for there to be a
mental state. It frequently happens that you think about doing something
but then decide not to do it. That's not a problem for either identity
theory or functionalism. The difference between them has more to do with
the difference between type and token physicalism.
Q:
What are the differences between radical and logical behaviorism,
functionalism, and central state identity?
A:
All these theories deny that there is such a thing as a "mind". They all
seek to explain how we ought to understand what we normally take to be
"mental" states and causes (e.g. "I got sad because I remembered my lost
puppy.").
Radical behaviorism claims that there are no mental causes, that every behavior is a direct response to some external stimulus. It makes an ontological claim, i.e. a claim about what does or does not exist. Logical behaviorism is a semantic theory: it does not make any claim about what does or does not exist, but only about what certain words mean. While in ordinary language we say, "Smith got angry and did xyz," the radical behaviorist will say, "Environmental conditions abc caused Smith to do xyz", and the logical behaviorist will say, "What we mean when we say 'Smith is angry' is that he is in such a disposition that, given environmental conditions abc, he would do xyz." Radical behaviorism claims as its advantage that it eliminates everything mental from our view of the world, that it reduces the world to the physical. Logical be haviorism claims as its advantage that we can understand any mental concept in terms of observable physical phenomena -- i.e. it reduces descriptions of the mental to descriptions of the physical. Both kinds of behaviorism seek to get around the problems of dualism by figuring out how we can do without talk of "mental states". Neither makes any attempt to understand what's going on "inside" a person. This is partly because science requires that every observation be corroborated from another point of view, which supposedly is impossible for mental states. So the only way scientifically to understand human behavior is in terms of the publicly observable. This is still a popular idea among psychologists.
Both identity theory and functionalism, unlike behaviorism, readily admit that there is something understandable that occurs between environmental stimulus and behavioral response, a complex set of causal relations that explains what we're really referring to when using mental terms. For identity theory, every mental state is just a state of the brain. For functionalism, every mental state is a state of some complex system of causal relations, usually but not necessarily occurring in the brain. The difference between identity theory and functionalism is even smaller than that between the two behaviorisms. They almost agree on what mental states really are for human beings; they disagree on whether mental states could exist in any physical system other than human beings.
Q:
What exactly is functionalism?
A:
Functionalism is the theory that Fodor holds. He spends eight pages
explaining it. If you want a gross simplification of the position, it's
this: what distinguishes a mental state is not what the parts of a
thinking thing are made of, but how they interact causally with each other
and with the rest of the world.
Q:
"Logical behaviorism is just radical behaviorism in semantic form"
What does this mean?
A:
See answer above. Logical behaviorism, in wanting to explain all mental
states in terms of observable stimulus and behavior, calls into question
whether we ever need to talk about mental states at all. It would seem
that, if logical behaviorism is true, we can throw out all mental terms,
just as if radical behaviorism is true, we can consider as nonexisting all
that mental stuff to which mental terms refer. So one does at a semantic
level what the other does at an ontological level.
Q:
I'm puzzled by token physicalism and type physicalism - what is the
difference?
A:
Type physicalism says that all mental states must be physical states of
the human brain. Token physicalism just says that all the mental states
we know of are physical states of the human brain, but it's at least
conceivable that states of other complex (usually physical) systems could
be mental states.
Q:
What exactly does a Touring machine do, or what is it supposed to
illustrate?
A:
It's not crucial that you understand the concept of a Turing machine
exactly. It's an abstract, simplified description of any machine that
processes input and produces output. Remind me to draw the input-state
table on the board, if we ever get around to talking about Turing machines
in class. Fodor uses the concept to argue that every mental state can in
principle be understood as a set of mechanical interactions, without
having to specify what physical system the interactions exist in.
Q:
I'm still not clear on the definition of intentionality. Could you
please help me with that?
A:
Look at Searle's definition (footnote, p. 000): "that feature of
certain mental states by which they are directed at or about objects and
states of affairs in the world." So, a belief is a mental state with
intentionality, because it's a belief about something. A desire is a
mental state with intentionality, because it's a desire for something. To
say that a mental state has intentionality is to say that it has a
content, that it is related to something in the world. Boredom, on the
other hand, would appear to be a mental state without intentionality, at
least in most cases.
Q:
In penelhums article I'm confused about who believes what. Under Humes'
skepticism it says Hume doesn't believe in "they retain any identity at
all." Is that what he believes, is that why he's a skeptic?
A:
Yes.
Q:
on page 000 1st and 2nd paragraph it says "What factor have to remain for
a thing of that sort to continue in being and which ones do not" (what
thing has to remain to retain identity) and "He restricts
himself......to a consideration of only the mental factors that make up
the being of a person and ignores the physical ones." Who's arguments are
these? Are these Pendelhum arguments against Hume. I'm lost.
A:
Well, they aren't arguments at all, as you've quoted them. The first
sentence fragment is a statement of what any question about identity
amounts to. The second statement is a criticism of Hume by Penelhum.
Q:
Also in that same paragraph it says " changes we can introspect within
the mind succeed one another very rapidly and one cannot detect any more
stable element." Are these Humes response to Penelum?
A:
No. Hume died more than a hundred years before Penelhum was born. This
is Penelhum's paraphrase of a claim that Hume made. Penelhum agrees with
Hume on this point.
Q:
How is saying these two things and what do they mean, what is there
relevance?
A:
Both Hume and Penelhum are saying this. It means that if you want to base
personal identity on something continuous and relatively unchanging,
there's nothing in our mental life that fits the bill.
Q:
We do not understand why ...Someone who accepts the memory
criterion of identity must also accept that a person will survive the
body's death.
A:
p. 000, the paragraph beginning, "The claim that personal identity can be
understood solely in terms of memory can be accepted by someone who does
not believe that a person can be identified with his mind or that anyone
ever survives physical death." The point is just that you can believe one
thing (personal identity is based entirely on memory), and at the same
time believe the other (surviving the body's death is impossible), without
contradicting yourself. The memory criterion opens up the possibility
that the person could survive the body's death, as does any criterion that
doesn't depend on the body. But that's all it does; it doesn't prove that
suvival must happen. So you could believe that what makes you the same
person you were last week is your ability to remember your experiences of
last week, and at the same time believe that when the body dies then no
more remembering takes place, so survival isn't possible.
Let me put this another way. "If A, then B" does not entail "If B, then A". Take the statement, "If you believe in personal survival of the body's death, then you must believe in a non-bodily criterion for personal identity." This is probably true. But just because that's true, that doesn't mean that if we switch the parts around the statement will still be true.
Q:
On page 000 2nd col. Miller says we can observe the soul though
characteristics but I don't understand Gretchen's argument against this.
All I could find was we don't know if the soul could be changing. How
does the refute Millers argument and is there more?
A:
It's basically the same argument as the one against identifying the soul
by means of the body. See Weirob's last two comments on p. 000, col. 1.
Q:
On page 000 1st col. Miller is talking about how we know who we are
before we open out eyes. What is Gretchen's response to this. All I
could find was that at least bodily identity makes sense. I know there
must be more because that seems like a vague argument.
A:
As Miller points out, Weirob had argued the previous night that an
immaterial soul cannot be the basis of personal identity because we don't
rely on it in identifying each other. He is arguing that the same
argument applies to the body, since I don't rely on knowing my body in
judging myself to be me, the same person I was yesterday, before I open my
eyes in the morning. Therefore, something other than the body must be the
basis of personal identity.
Her response is that her argument the night before consisted of more than that. She also argued that the concept of two souls at different times being numerically identical can't even be understood, since souls have no identifiable characteristics. At least we know what it means to say that two bodies are really the same body at different times.
You're right, though, there's something vague about the response. She never really answers his objection: if personal identity is bodily identity, then why am I able to identify myself with my eyes closed?
Q:
On page 000 2nd col. middle it talks about God creating multiple people
and loss of identity or who is the Real person. Now I understand there
can only be one person because of numerical identity but why if God
creates a new Gretchen in "heaven" why can't that be the true Gretch if
the one on earth is dead?
A:
Because He could just as easily create two, which brings up the same
problem again. Now see Cohen's remarks on the next page -- let's say that
if God creates one, it's you, and if he creates two, then neither is you.
That amounts to the same thing as your question -- if the original is
dead, then the copy is the only one, so doesn't that make her the real
one?
Q:
Also on page 000 1st col. middle Weirob says "identity has become
something dependent on things wholly extrinsic to her." What does that
mean?
A:
This is a response to Cohen's suggestion, and an answer to your question.
If personal identity depends on there not being an existing copy of you
(i.e. two of you existing at once), then who you are depends on
circumstances that seem completely unrelated to you (extrinsic to you).
The new Gretchen in heaven has to say, "I'm the real Gretchen, unless God
created yet another duplicate somewhere that I don't know about, in which
case I'm not the real Gretchen, but since I don't know whether He has, I
can't really be sure who I am." That's if we follow Cohen's suggestion.
Q:
Is the duplication of a deceased person/their brain numerically
identical to the person who existed before them on earth, if there is only
one duplication made?
A:
A duplication of something can never be numerically identical to the
original. Think about it. If you make a photocopy of a piece of paper, is
the copy numerically identical to the original?
Q:
Can you explain the doctrine of resurection of the body?
A:
It says that after your death you exist again in heaven in your original
body.
Q:
And do they come to any conclusions here as to what identity is?
A:
None that all three of them agree on.
Q:
On page 000 2nd col. she is talking about the duplication of the brain.
Is she say that the brain isn't me because God can create many me's and
then who would I be. Or am I crossing two arguments. why isn't a person
with a duplicated brain her?
A:
"One cannot be identical to two." Remember, "numerical identity" means
one and only one -- to say that two things are numerically identical is to
say that the are one and the same thing. With personal identity, we are
concerned with the numerical identity of two persons existing at different
points in time -- the question is whether they are actually the same
person at different times. It is not possible for two persons existing in
different places at the same time to be numerically identical. Nor is it
possible for them both to be identical to a past person.
Q:
On page 000 2nd col. they are talking about aspirin and who will have a
headache or a stomach ache. What is this proving ( or disproving) ? I'm
not sure what it means.
A:
The brain will have the headache after the transplant if no aspirin is
taken. The body donating the brain will have the stomachache before the
transplant if the aspirin is taken. The headache will be worse than the
stomachache. The brain donor (Gretchen) knows that she will suffer a
stomachache if she takes the aspirin, and she has to decide whether it
also will be her who suffers the headache if she doesn't. This is just a
concrete example illustrating the question of who the survivor of the
transplant is -- the brain donor or the body donor. The point is that it
seems absurd to let public opinion or a court decision decide the identity
of the survivor, when it's a matter of whether or not I'm going to suffer
pain.
Q:
On page 000 2nd col. middle Weirob says "You may assume that Dr.
Matthews' technique works perfectly so the causal process involved ..."
What does he mean by causal process.
A:
She means the set of actions that take place in the brain when we have
memory -- one cell stimulating another, which stimulates others, etc.
"Causal process" is just a chain of cause and effect.
Q:
"Man, is not a free agent in any one instant of his life; he is
necessarily guided in each step by those advantages." What are "those
advantages"?
A:
You didn't finish the sentence, which explains which advantages: the ones
"that he attaches to the objects by which his passions are roused..."
"The objects by which your passions are roused" just means "The things
that you desire." To say that you "attach advantages" to the objects you
desire just means that you think there's something good about them;
there's a reason why you want them.
All he's really saying here is that all our actions are guided by our desires.
Q:
What are the "necessary causes"?
A:
In this sentence he says that everything that happens in a person, as well
as in nature, "is derived from necessary causes, which act according to
necessary laws, and which produce necessary effects from whence
necessarily flow others." A "necessary cause" is any event that, given
certain conditions, must produce a particular result. What the necessary
causes are depends on what it is you want to explain. For example, what
are the "necessary causes" of "all that happens in and is done by a
person"? They are the desires and other passions that make us do what we
do.
In case you've ever studied logic, the way Holbach uses the word "necessary" is different from the way we talk about "necessary conditions".
Q:
Holbach writes "the actions of fools are as necessary as those of
the most prudent individual." What I understand from that is in order
to have prudent actions there must be foolish actions, because if you
did not have foolish actions, then all actions would be prudent
actions. Therefore, if all actions are prudent they are just
"actions." Is this the meaning of what he his saying?
A:
What you say is true -- the word "foolish" has meaning only if there is a
concept "prudent" with which to contrast it. But this is not what Holbach
is saying. He's saying that neither the fool nor the wise person can
help but do what they do. Their actions are both equally caused, and
neither is free to do anything other than what they do.
Q:
do we have no free choice because we act as a result of motive, the motive
to save his life is greater than his thirst therefore he follows this
desire but neither is a result of free will? if i am a little confused
could you explain or elaborate?...what causes a persons actions?
A:
I can't tell if you're confused, since you seem to have the basic idea
down. As for what causes a person's actions...you could call it desire,
motive, or impulse. Most of the time we won't know exactly what the
causes are, but Holbach's point is that there always will be something
such that, given the external and internal factors at work at that moment,
the agent could not have done otherwise.
Q:
"When a person derives his own rules from an analysis of
punitive contingencies, we are particularly likely to give him credit for
the good behavior which follows, but the visable stages have simply faded
farther into history." What does he mean "visable stages faded farther
into history"?
A:
The basic point Skinner is making on this and the previous page has to do
with "goodness" -- that is, when and why do we normally give people credit
for being "good"?
I'll elaborate the illustration I gave in class. Suppose you and I are the only ones in the room, and I stand next to my full wallet holding a loaded gun. If you don't take my money, we don't give you credit for being good, because the punishment you might have gotten is obvious and visible. But if I leave the room and you don't take my money, we consider you "good", or "honest", because there was no obvious punishment that you would have suffered, that is, you could have gotten away with stealing but didn't do it anyway.
Now, in the discussion on pp. 000-0, Skinner has been arguing that all learning is basically a matter of avoiding harm, or "punitive contingencies". We learn to follow certain rules because those rules have been developed to keep us from suffering harm, either from nature or from the punishment of other humans. Sometimes we learn these rules from others, sometimes we figure them out ourselves from our own experience of unpleasant situations.
This means that, according to Skinner, the two situations described above are basically the same; it's just that in the first case the punishment is immediately visible, while in the second case it's not. You learned the rule "Do not steal" a long time ago, the first time you were punished for stealing (or saw someone else get punished for it). You turned the unpleasant experience (punishment) into a rule (for avoiding punishment), and today you live by the rule without even thinking about the punishment part. By "visible stages" he means the actual unpleasant events (punishment) that teach us not to do certain things. We adopt rules because of the threat of punishment, but after living by those rules a long time we forget about the threat behind them. The visible stages fade farther into history: the harmful experiences that led us to adopt a rule fade into the past, while the rule stays with us.
His ultimate point is this: just because a person does the right thing in a situation where there was no threat of punishment, that doesn't meant the person is "better" than someone who does the right thing in a situation where the punishment for doing the wrong thing is clear. In both of the two cases I described above, your behavior is determined by your desire to avoid punishment -- it's just not so obvious in the second case. Thus there is no reason to give you credit for being good in the one case and not in the other. This means that there really is no point in trying to decide about a person's goodness or badness, whether to praise or blame; the only important issue is the most effective means for producing the right behavior.
Q:
Also i know that Ayer is a soft deteminist that he believes freedom and
cause go together...can you explain this, like his stance on how they work
together with regard to free will?
A:
Freedom and cause can coexist simply because they're not opposites.
"Free" doesn't mean "uncaused", so it isn't a contradiction to say that an
act is both caused and free. His point isn't to show how they work
together, just to show that believing all our actions are caused doesn't
commit you to denying that our actions are free.
Q:
Also, what is Ayers take on character, where does it come into his whole
philisophical outpour?
A:
Most libertarians (like Campbell) acknowledge that character is the cause
of most of our actions (which is why you can predict how a certain type of
person will react to a particular situation), but also claim that we
freely choose our character. But Ayer argues that character is in turn
caused by other factors -- genetics, upbringing, etc. His point is that
the libertarian doesn't get anywhere by claiming that the agent is the
cause of the character that lies behind her actions, since that character
is caused by other factors.
Q:
When Campbell is talking about a free will, what is the difference
between duty and desire?
A:
Well, duty is what you ought to do, and desire is what you want to do.
The idea of free will is that you can freely choose whether to do what you
ought to, or what you want to. Did I understand your question correctly?
Q:
What are some of the basic ideas of liberatarianism?
A:
The one main idea is that humans have free will. What follows from
this, among other things, is that we are morally responsible for our
actions.
Q:
"Clearly, it is on account of this integral connection with
moral responsibility that such exceptional importance has always been felt
to attach to the Free Will problem." I do not understand this.
A:
Why do we even care whether there's such a thing as free will? That is,
why is the Free Will problem (the question of whether there is free will)
so important? Because the idea of free will is so crucial to the idea of
moral responsibility. Free will is a "precondition" of moral
responsibility; this means, if there were no such thing as free will, then
no one could be considered morally responsible for their actions. You
can't have one without the other. (This is the "integral connection".)
The point of all this is in the sentence prior to the one you quoted: the
term "free will" can have different meanings, but the only one we care
about is the kind of free will that is a precondition of moral
responsibility.
Q:
"It is significant, however, that the ordinary man, though well
enough aware of the influence upon choices of hereditary and environment,
does not feel obliged thereby to give up his assumption that moral
predicates are somehow applicable." Can you explain this.
A:
In making moral judgments (praising or blaming someone for being good or
evil), we try to give people some slack if they're the victims of an
abusive environment, or bad genes. For example, the grade-school bully
who pushes the other kids around on the playground is obviously bad. But
when we find out that the kid's parents beat him all the time, then we're
likely to feel some sympathy for him, and we'll even say, "It's not
entirely his fault that he's this way." We consider his home environment
responsible for his acting this way. This is what it means to talk of
"the influence of environment upon choices". (It's not so clear what
Campbell might have in mind with "heredity".)
But (and this is his point), even though we're willing to take things like environment into account and admit that someone is not entirely responsible for his actions, we still think it makes sense to praise someone for doing good or to blame someone for doing bad. ("Good" and "bad" are examples of moral predicates. To say that "moral predicates are applicable" means that it makes sense to praise or blame someone.) That is, environment and heredity can partly account for someone's choices, but not entirely; the person still has to take some responsibility for his actions.
Q:
On the bottom of page 000 and continuity onto page 000 Campbell is
discussing the importance of being able to chose otherwise. I'm confused
who believe character and circumstance matter and to what affect. I know
you used the example of what Ayer would believe and what Campbell would
believe in class, but I don't remember who believed what.
A:
Everyone agrees that for an action to be considered free, the agent must
have been able to do otherwise. But there's a basic disagreement about
what it means to be able to do otherwise. Determinists like Ayer say that
it means the agent would have done otherwise if the factors causing her to
choose the action had been different. Campbell says it must mean that,
even if all the circumstances (causal factors) were exactly the same, the
agent would still have been able to choose otherwise.
Q:
On page 000 he is discussing rational will. I understand it's another
type (or interpretation) of freedom, but I don't know what it is (the
definition?) or if it goes against or with moral responsibility.
I assume there are two different view because in the second column in the
first paragraph he discusses rival views, but I don't know what the two
views are.
A:
See where he quotes another philosopher in the first column: "The will is
free in the degree that it is informed and disciplined by the moral
principle." That is, only the will that chooses to fulfill its obligation
is truly free; otherwise, it's a slave of desire. The other view
(Campbell's) is that the will must be considered free regardless of what
it chooses.
Q:
I don't understand the difference between the self and character
discussed on page 000.
A:
Let's take that sentence near the bottom of column 2, beginning with "The
'nature' of the self...". The self is everything you are. Your character
is what makes your behavior predictable. We say that someone with a
tendency to behave honestly has an honest character. Character is the
result of years of cultivated good or bad habits. But while character is
part of your "self", part of what you are, the self is more than just
character. It must also include the power to change your character, the
power to choose to do something completely "out of character", the ability
to decide which new habits to cultivate in order to create a new
character.
Q:
On page 000 first column last paragraph it says "that is is impossible for
man to transcend human subjectivity" Does that simply mean that what one
person choses effects everyone or does it have another meaning.
A:
It's a pretty obscure statement, and we could take a long time figuring
out exactly what he means by it. To say that it is impossible to
transcend something means that one is limited to it, can't get beyond it.
The basic idea seems to be that we don't have access to some objective
standards for right and wrong outside ourselves (our subjectivity), so
that we are forced to establish our values on our own. And since values
are inherently universal, each of us is responsible for establishing what
we consider to be the way everyone ought to live.
When Sartre says that "in making this choice he also chooses all men", he isn't talking about how what one person chooses effects everyone else. I may may make a decision that has no effect on anyone, but in choosing what I think is right, I choose what I think is right for everyone, which means, ultimately, that I choose the way I want humanity to be.
Q:
On page 000 he is discussing forlornness. Why is it bad that God doesn't
exist if they still have good and evil. I thought you said ethics is
ethics. Why are they forlorn?
A:
You may have misunderstood me. When I said, "Ethics is ethics", I was
expressing the ordinary point of view -- that there simply are universal
standards of right and wrong, good and bad, and the absence of God doesn't
matter. Sartre is disputing this. If there is no God, then there is no
universal basis for values. People may think that they still have good
and evil, but in fact each person has to decide for herself which acts to
accept and which to reject, with no moral code to refer to. Man (that's
all of us) is forlorn, says Sartre, "because neither within him nor
without does he find anything to cling to."
Q:
Will you please go over the performing of an act to confirm and define it
on page 000 1st column. And what the vicious circle is.
A:
Consider the question he raises, "How is the value of a feeling
determined?" This is an important question, because one way people try to
decide what they ought to do is to figure out which course of action they
feel most strongly about. (This is what the student in his example tries
to do.) The problem with this is that you can't know how strongly you
feel about an action until you do the action. It's the decision to follow
Course A rather than Course B that tells you that you felt more strongly
about A than B. But if this is true, then you can't use strength of
feeling as a basis for making the decision. (Remember the problem with
the memory criterion for personal identity? It was the same sort of
vicious circle.) The ultimate point here is that trying to make a
decision based on the strength of your feelings is just another way of
trying to avoid responsibility for the decision.
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