Re: qualia and rationality

From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Thu Dec 23 1999 - 23:56:15 MST


Dan Fabulich wrote [Sat, 18 Dec 1999 ]

> Anscombe takes claims of the form "I am this thing right here [pointing at
> herself]" not to be identity statements, but rather statements of relation
> between some ideas that she has (that is, Fregean "ideas," not "thoughts"
> in any way) and the thing at which she points.

In Anscombe's analysis, using Frege, how can the pronoun "I" have "Sinn"
but no "Bedeutung"?

> An interesting characteristic of this analysis: Anscombe argues that any
> analysis of "I" which requires a referent for "I" requires us to accept
> dualism.

Of course.

> ...the possibility that there is then nothing that I am."

Response deferred, pending your comment on the final paragraph

> It's not obvious that she can give a similar account of "this place" and
> "this time," but I'll leave that for elsewhere.
>
> If this seems a little fishy to you, well, I think it is. As you know, I
> don't believe in qualia, so I certainly don't believe in a "now" qualia or
> any other indexical qualia.

If there are three real, at least temporarily enduring objects, in this
perceptual field, but only two are present visually, how does one dis-
tinguish this situation from a remembered one in which all three were
present simultaneously? [If necessary include a second party who at
this time reports that all three are present visually.]

Bob

=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
=======================



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