#peter hacker

[crazy-austrians]

[anaxerneas]

Aristotle and P.M.S. Hacker

[crazy-austrians]

[anaxerneas]

It is mistaken to suppose that human beings are 'embodied' at all - that conception belongs to the Platonic, Augustinian, and Cartesian tradition that should be repudiated. It would be far better to say, with Aristotle, that human beings are ensouled creatures (empsuchos) - animals endowed with such capacities that confer upon them, in the form of life that is natural to them, the status of persons.

Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker, "The Conceptual Presuppositions of Cognitive Neuroscience", Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language

[anaxerneas]

[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"

[anaxerneas]

But to be master of the use of words does not imply possession of an ability to give an overview of the use. One may use such terms as “voluntarily,” “on purpose,” “deliberately,” “intentionally” perfectly correctly and without any hesitation, but when questioned about their relationships, one may have the greatest difficulty responding.

Can one act intentionally without acting voluntarily? — Yes, when one does something under duress. Can one act voluntarily without acting intentionally? — Yes, when one does something knowingly but neither because one wants to do it nor for any further reason, as when one gestures while one speaks; or when one knowingly does something that is an unwanted or not wanted consequence or by-product of one’s intentional action, as when one wakes one’s wife when putting the cat out at night. Is everything one does intentionally also done deliberately? No, for much of our intentional behavior requires no deliberation or decision, but is done as a matter of course, as when one opens the door when going out or gets on the bus when the bus one awaits arrives. Can one do something with the further intention of doing something else (e.g., go to London to visit Jack), without doing what one does with the purpose of doing that other thing? Yes, for example, when one goes to the theater with the intention of catching the last bus home. For one’s purpose in going to the theater is not to catch the last bus home.

Most of us would have great difficulty in coming up with these answers off the cuff. That shows that one can master the use of an expression without having an overview of that use. It also demonstrates the fact that mastery of use does not imply mastery of comparative use. One may be able to find one’s way round an old town with unerring exactness, but be quite unable to draw a map. But to construct fruitful and coherent hypotheses in cognitive neuroscience, a conceptual map is needed lest the questions be incoherent, the presuppositions misguided, and the hypotheses tacitly unintelligible.

Parashkev Nachev and Peter Hacker, "The neural antecedents to voluntary action: A conceptual analysis"