think a compelling introduction to philosophy oct 1999

[...]... myself! So perhaps it would take a perfect mathematician to give me a good idea (a "clear and distinct" idea) of what a perfect mathematician would be like Well, perhaps; but now it becomes doubtful whether I do have a clear and distinct idea of a perfect mathematician, and analogously, of a perfect being Generally, what happens if I frame this idea is that I think more as I did when thinking of someone... thought-experiment Imagine an advance in science that enables a mad scientist to extract your brain, and then to maintain it in a vat of chemicals that sustain its normal functioning Imagine that the scientist can deliver inputs to the normal information channels (the optic nerve, the nerves that transmit sensations of hearing and touch and taste) Being good-natured, the scientist gives information as if the brain... is the physical system itself, since God can superadd thought to anything he likes But he is abundantly clear that it takes a mind to make a mind It takes a special dispensation: thought cannot arise naturally (or, as Leibniz has it, in a rationally explicable way) from matter For unthinking particles of matter, however put together, can have nothing thereby added to them, but a new relation of position,... yourself a nice sturdy example of pain touch a hotplate, or swing your toe into the wall it is very hard to imagine that very mental state without imagining it as incredibly unpleasant And it is hard to imagine it without its tendency to cause typical manifestations in behaviour Contemporary thinkers tend not to pin too much faith on behaviourism of this kind They prefer a slightly more elaborate doctrine... Leibniz as opposing the element of brute happenstance in Locke, in the name of a rational quasi-mathematical relation between mind and body It is possible to suggest that there is a middle route: one that opposes the happenstance, but does not go so far as a mathematical or rationally transparent relationship This is usually put by saying that perhaps there is a metaphysical identity between mental and... just as the figures projected by two identical shapes on a plane at an angle must be the same It is interesting that Leibniz uses a mathematical analogy It is not just that he was an even better mathematician than Descartes, and amongst other things invented the calculus It is rather that for Leibniz the whole order of nature must eventually be transparent to reason When things fall out one way or another... reasoning Our reasonings are apt to be even more fallible than our senses Curiously, he does not see it quite like that What he does is to reflect on the Cogito, and ask what makes it so especially certain He convinces himself that it is because he has an especially transparent "clear and distinct" perception of its truth It is generally agreed that Descartes, the mathematician, had a mathematical... toe one day, and make a fearful fuss about it, but do the same thing, and feel the same pain, another day and bravely smile and carry on Behaviour is not a transparent guide to sensations, thoughts, or feelings (That is the point of the joke about two behaviourists in bed: "That was great for you, how was it for me?") So, at the very least, complications must be added Perhaps we could salvage the analysis... what it would be for someone to be like that, I do not have to have come across such a person I can describe them in advance I understand what condition they have to satisfy without any such acquaintance, and indeed even if nobody is ever like that Probably Descartes would reject the analogy Perhaps he thinks of it more like this Do I have an idea of a perfect mathematician? Well, I can start by thinking... essentially similar Pain is a mental event or state that lends itself fairly readily to the project of analysis, for at least it has a fairly distinctive, natural, expression in behaviour Other states with the same kind of natural expression might include emotions (sadness, fear, anger, and joy all have typical manifestations in behaviour) But other mental states only relate to behaviour very indirectly: . condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 0-19-210024-6 (hbk.) ISBN. reality can become. Here is an updated variant of the thought-experiment. Imagine an advance in science that enables a mad scientist to extract your brain, and then to maintain it in a vat of. whether I do have a clear and distinct idea of a perfect mathematician, and analogously, of a perfect being. Generally, what happens if I frame this idea is that I think more as I did when thinking