[lit-ideas] Re: The Donalling of Donal
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 09:02:07 +0100 (BST)
> ---------------------------------------------
> Donal will be disconcerted to hear that I agree with him almost completely.
No - life is full of pleasant surprises.
> What
> could it mean to say that I am what I do, in light of the conceptual truth
Ah: this is where we perhaps begin to differ. For Popns. the truth at issue
is best seen as one of substantive metaphysics and not one of conceptual
analysis. But this may not be so important in this instance.
> that
> I am not my own actions (beliefs, emotions, etc.) but the one who does and
> has
> them? There are no metaphysical bundles of agentless 'doings.'
Again: for Popns. this claim is not asserting a conceptual truth but is
making a substantive assertion about the metaphysics of 'doings' in relation
to 'agency'.
>If something
> else
> is meant by the formula 'x is (essentially?) what x does,' I'm not clear
> what
> it is.
>
> I think though that although dispositions are not reducible to actions,
> there's
> no way to attribute dispositions to a person or a thing unless that person
> (typically?) does the things he or it is alleged to have dispositions to
> do.
I hope Robert Paul is pleasantly surprised rather than disconcerted that I
agree - the reason being that we can in practice only test the existence of a
disposition by way of its 'actualisation' or 'realistion, and indeed the
strenghth of the disposition by the degree of its actualisation (this is
obviously simplistic - some with a strong disposition to take drugs do not do
so). Certainly it is hard to test for a disposition that has no upshot.
> Dispositional accounts usually trail off into circularity, Ryle to the
> contrary.
Why circular?
> That 'Ryle to the contrary' may, I hope, get me off Donal's little list for
> about five minutes.
What little list? This creeps me out.
Donal
Dashing
London
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