#p.m.s. hacker

[anaxerneas]

TPM: The Philosophers’ Magazine | Hacker’s challenge

If "the world doesn't have scaffolding", that's because it has walls, beams, a foundation, etc. Scaffolding can't be evaluated all on its own, even if it would be inappropriate to evaluate it as if it were a replica or scale model of the building.

[anaxerneas]

Beliefs (i.e. believings) are not dispositions to behave. Dispositions are essentially characterized by what they are dispositions to do, beliefs are essentially characterized by reference to what is believed to be so. But one can know that A believes that p without knowing what, if anything, A is prone or liable to do. The utterance “I believe that p but it is not the case that p” is a kind of contradiction. But “I have a disposition (I tend, am inclined or prone) to V, but it is not the case that p” is not a contradiction of any kind. If A believes that p, then it follows that A is right if p and wrong if not-p, but no such thing follows from A’s having a behavioural disposition, tendency or proneness.

Quine compounds his errors by identifying a disposition with its vehicle, claiming that the human dispositions are physiological states of the body or brain. But a disposition, no matter whether an inanimate one or a human one, is never identical with its vehicle, any more than an ability is identical with the structures that make it possible. The horsepower of the car is not beneath its bonnet, and the intoxicative power of whisky is neither lighter nor heavier than the constituent alcohol that is its vehicle. So even if it were true that believing that p is a disposition, proneness or tendency, it would not follow that it is identical with a neural state. For were believing that p identical with a neural state, one would be able to say “I believe that p (referring thus to one’s neural state), but it is not the case that p”.

P.M.S. Hacker, "Passing by the Naturalistic Turn"

Moore's Paradox - "It's raining, but I don't believe that it's raining"

[simplesarrangedme-wise]

Hacker is so pissed off at Conant in this paper, it's hilarious. Wittgenstein scholarship is srs bsns.