Ludwig V

That's a very interesting thought. I'm not quite sure where to go with it, though. I'm sure Ryle does talk about the idea, but I can't remember where....

H'mm. I'm afraid you'll have to tell me more before I can see your point. (I looked at the SEP article before saying that.) I'm inclined to wonder whe...

Maybe this thread is dead. But I'm going to post a summary of the next lecture, so see if that provokes any response. It is, perhaps a more recognizab...

That's very interesting. The causal theory of perception is obviously simplistic, just for the reasons you give here. But equally, it's obvious that o...

Sadly, not good-bye. The argument still rages - in exactly the traditional format, which I thought had been banished. Which drives me back to Cavell's...

It is classic Ryle. And yes, it's about a battle that is very much pertinent to-day. It's refreshing to see something a bit more impartial that usual....

Now you have lost me completely. What is the substrate of a substance? I find that a rather surprising claim. Don't babies experience things from the ...

We clearly have the same approach to this. I just have one question. Surely, one has an identity from the moment one has a constitution, even if one's...

OK. Forget the business about DNA. There are many people in my life who I meet only sporadically. I don't know what happens to them when I'm not there...

Fair enough. I notice that many people have no problem speaking of brain-states as symbols of representations. But a symbol is always a symbol of some...

Thanks for that. The Spartans always prided themselves on being laconic. I see the point now. The exchange took place in 346 BCE. Sadly, Philip procee...

A popular matephor, but wrong. Nature does not sit out there (wherever that is), like a joint of meat, waiting to be carved up and served up. Nor are ...

All chains are selections from the many interconnections of the web. When we articulate a specific causal chain, we make decisions about where it star...

That's ok so far as it goes. But there are complexities in that "we". It isn't a choice that we make by getting together, debating and voting. It's ma...

Quite so. Not wanting to be picky, but what makes these abstractions arbitrary? Isn't it rather that the idea of natural kinds proposes a certain kind...

That's right. And my correspondent on mathematics in general and probability in particular tells me that these are regarded as degenerate cases of pro...

Rigid Designator says "Since the terms 'water' and 'H2O' pick out the same object in every possible world, there is no possible world in which 'water'...

Well, that resolves one of my difficulties about Kripke. It would be interesting to know whether Kripke thinks that this fits with what he has to say ...

I see four issues here. First, your view that, once the egg is formed, everything is set. I'm not clear whether you intend this is in as a determinist...

I take it that you would object to any suggestion that either hydrogen or oxygen is water in any sense. It is only the combination that is water. Equa...

I would have thought that causation (broadly understood) would have a great deal to do with the continuity of anything that exists in space and time. ...

That's very interesting. So many questions. I used to accept it before I read Naming and Necessity but that article persuaded me that it's meaning, if...

You don't say! I can't imagine what you have in mind. But thank you. I'll hold off on introducing the next lecture.

Ryle himself is uncharacteristically cautious about his arguments in this lecture - “I have produced quite an apparatus of somewhat elaborate argument...

But the event is the creation of a fertilized egg, which is beginning of a process which will result - years later - in a new person. That process of ...

I want to add to the disquisition above. 1) Thinking about the possibility/impossibility of becoming a different person from the one I am, I came up w...

I'll second that. I'm afraid I can't resist elaborating on this. Where inanimate objects are involved we get to choose - or perhaps more accurately we...

I would want to say that what makes schopenhauer1 who he is is partly determined by who he thinks he is and even who he chooses to be - I'm not saying...

As to the first sentence, I notice that it was possible that you might not have made the account, though I get the point that it is no longer possible...

Well, I don't see why we need to rule that out as impossible. It may be very unlikely, but unlikely things do happen. And we'll never check enough lea...

I meant to point out that, apart from the complexity of self-awareness and the capacity for self-reference, there is an additional complexity that a p...

I've always thought that some modifications were necessary. For example, there are two different kinds of water - heavy and light. Wikipedia tells me ...

Here's my summary of Lecture IV on Pleasure. This lecture is a new departure. The previous two, it turns out, were exercises, now we get serious. The ...

I/m sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by "buttering" in this message. On the other hand, perhaps it isn't important.

I think it's time to move on to the next lecture - "Pleasure". I'll post it as soon as I can.

That's a big "if". I would have thought that the criteria most important to most people are social - and even when they are physical, they often also ...

It doesn't make any logical difference.

Would "Achilles runs faster past smaller distances" cover it?

This is where the third person view helps. Since I wouldn't have existed, how would we know that the replacement wasn't you? Equally, then, how do we ...

Well, I'm not sure about that, but it seems to be the standard answer these days. What I was after was the doctrine that any change, not matter how sm...

Quite so. I think the difficulty here is that if one is looking forwards, possibilities could become actual. But if one is looking backward, they coul...

Here's a link for a download Austin "Sense and Sensibilia" Lecture VII pp. 62 - 77. I hope you find it enjoyable and profitable.

Thank you. I'm not the person to do that work. I think I'll remain respectfully sceptical. Correct/wrong is a very intricate issue. Complete agreement...

Well, if my attempt involves ontological mystery, I'll give up on it. I'm glad that you don't think that it is like Hume's failure of the sun to rise ...

OK. It is certainly possible that he was, and it is hard to be sure of anything about those very early philosophers. It just seems so odd that an argu...

I find that hard to believe. Austin puts a lot of emphasis on the inter-connectedness of words. Austin would certainly consider "cause" and all sorts ...

You could say that the job of a counter-factual is to consider impossible possibilities.

It was a genuine question. I don't know what causal necessity means. I know what "I inherited my fair hair from my parents means." But then, I've been...

I've discovered that I'm a bit prone to being distracted by side-issues, so I won't ask what that means.

I'm puzzled. I thought Socrates/Plato invented dialectic. What's the evidence that any pre-Socratics knew about dialectics?