Abstract
It is time to wrap things up, partly by recapitulating, and partly by mounting a direct attack on the most prominent contemporary ontological model of knowing by way of ideas, that of neurophysiological materialism. So here is the question: What do contemporary neuroscientists or neurophilosophers take having an idea to be? This question is a version of the seventeenth century question considered throughout this book: What is an idea? It is an ontological question that arises out of the Cartesian theory that we know things in the external material world by way of ideas in our minds, which ideas represent those external things. There are of course many classic criticisms of the way of representational ideas. For example, given that we can know external things only by way of representational ideas and can never perceive any thing directly to compare it with its idea, how do we know that an idea represents external things accurately (or at all). But such scepticism is not at issue here. For those who do assume that there are representational ideas, the question arises: What are they? We have seen that the answer in classic Cartesian dualism is that an idea is a property of a mental substance. Having an idea for a Cartesian is having a property of an active mind. What is having an idea for, say, Patricia Churchland?
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Notes
These structural interpretations are defended with reference to the original texts in Richard A. Watson, “Arnauld, Malebranche, and the Ontology of Ideas,” Methodology and Science, Vol. 24 (1991), pp. 161-73. Fora diverging interpretation, see Steven M. Nadler, Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), and Malebranche and Ideas (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
The development of this objection is examined in Richard A. Watson, The Breakdown of Cartesian Metaphysics (Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International, 1987).
John Herman Randall, Jr., “Religio Mathematic i: The Geometrical World of Malebranche,” Studies in the History of Ideas, Vol.2 (New York: Columbia Univeristy Press, 1925), pp. 185–218, and The Career of Philosophy : From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, Vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962), pp. 425–433; Paul Schrecker, “La methode cartesienne et la logique,” Revue philosophique, Vol. 123 (1937) , pp. 336–367, and “La parallelisme theologico rnathematique chez Malebranche,” Revue philosophique, Vol. 124 (1938), pp. 215–252 ; Leon Brunschvicg,Les etapes de la philosophie mathematique des cartesiens, 3rd edition(Paris: Presses UniversitairesFrancaises),1947; HenriGouhier,La philosophie de Malebranche et son experience religieuse, 2nd edition, (Paris: Libraire Philosophique 1. Vrin), 1948;Gustav Bergmann, “Some Remarkson the Philosophy of Malebranche,” Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 10(1956), pp. 207–225; Harry Bracken, “Some Problems of Substance Among the Cartesians,” American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 1(1964), pp. 129–137; RichardA. Watson, “Foucher’s Mistakeand Malebranche’s Break: Ideas, Intelligible Extension, and the End of Ontology,” in Stuart Brown, editor, Nicolas Malebranche: His Philosophical Critics and Successors (Assen/Maastricht:VanGorcum, 1991), pp.22–34.
Is this Locke’s true position? It is not my purpose here to argue that point. My presupposition is that this brief characterization of Locke on primary and secondary qualities is an influential standard textbook version. See Richard A. Watson, “Shadow History,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 31 (1993), pp. 95-123.
Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1991), p. 192.
Consciousness Explained, p. 192.
John Searle, Minds, Brains, and Science (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984); May Brodbeck, “Mental and Physical: Identity versus Sameness,” in Paul K. Feyerabend and Grover Maxwell, eds., Mind, Matter, and Method: Essays in Honor of Herbert Feigl (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1966), pp. 40-58, and “Mind: From Within and From Without,” Presidential Address, Proceedings and Addresses of The American Philosophical Association, Vol. 46 (1972), pp. 42-55.
David M. Armstrong, Universals: An Opinionated Introduction (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989).
David M. Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 72–74.
Daniel C. Dennett, “Real Patterns, Deeper Facts, and Empty Questions,” in The Intentional Stance (Cambridge: Bradford Books/MIT Press, 1987), p. 40; the quotation is from W. V. O. Quine, “On the Reasons for Indeterminacy ofTranslation,” Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 67 ( 1970), p. 180. 11. Daniel C. Dennett, “Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology,” in The Intentional Stance, p. 52.
“Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology,” p. 53.
Ibid., p. 53. See also Consciousness Explained, pp. 218-219.
“Three Kinds of Intentional Psychology,” p. 57.
Ibid., p. 60.
Consciousness Explained, pp. 362-411.
Ibid., p. 372.
Jerry Fodor, The Language of Thought (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975).
The Language of Thought, pp. 85, 79-97.
Ibid., pp. 76-79, 197-205.
Ibid., pp. 76-79.
Ibid., pp. 76-79.
Fred Dretske, Explaining Behavior: Reasons in a World of Causes (Cambridge: Bradford Books/MIT Press, 1988), p. 77.
Consciousness Explained, p. 383.
David M. Armstrong, A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 72–74.
Ibid., p. 75.
The Language of Thought, p. 204.
A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility, p. 43.
C. R. Gallistel, The Organization of Learning (Cambridge: Bradford Books/MIT Press, 1990), p. 15.
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Watson, R.A. (1995). Having Ideas. In: Representational Ideas. Synthese Library, vol 250. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-0075-5_7
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