It is good to see that most of you are asking questions that show a real interest and concern as well as will to understand the material we are covering. I have not made any observations about these questions, but I do think that they are mostly of very high quality.
It seems to me that being able to formulate a question carefully and precisely is an incredibly important part of solving any intellectual problem. It is also what makes a paper, essay, or whatever piece of expository writing good: the focus of a good question. It's much more important at the beginning than a thesis.
Nathan Mahany
1) Without making a category-mistake, explain the
statement "the pancake and the musical note are flat.
It may be helpful to utilize the terms "quality" and
"substance", and explain the use of each. Does this
statement constitute a violation of
category-difference?
2) Aristotle dismissed Plato's theory of Forms as as
sound without sense. Why do you think that is? What
is Aristotle's opposing argument?
3) If contrarys do not exist, how would one classify
death and life of a subject/primary substance? The
subject would cease to exist and therefore, it does
not seem to fit Aristotle's explanation of the
contrary as change.
Liz Guenard
1) How could an understanding of concepts of kinds, or categorization as Aristotle suggests, aid in everyday affairs and in the formation of personal identity?
2) How are theory-based patterning and groupings, like that of evolution for biological taxonomy, used to distinguish emotion (higher cognitive, programs, -all levels). What theories underly these ideas? and how is this a useful and effective way of identifying members?
3) How and why do children's ideas on kinds change as they grow older? What processes and social constructs encourage these changes and for what purpose
Katie Cook
How can we legitimately categorizes things into their natural kind, when
ultimately, we can always reduce them to smaller and smaller categories?
How can natural kinds, or categories, solve the problem of induction? Is
Griffiths some sort of foundationalist?
I don't understand how anything we say can have anything to do with the
metaphysical world, can someone clarify?
Ashley Orenberg
I keep studying the model from Chapter 4:
stimuli_ANS reaction_awareness of ANS reaction_emotion
So really ANS reaction is the initial set of physiological occurrences such as a smile or a frown or a tear drop. Is it fair to label these reflex reactions as emotions? Yes you can place a word to each reaction such as joy to smile and sadness to tear drop and then perhaps even higher cognitive emotions such as love could derive from the joy that initially began with a smile. But I guess what Iım having trouble with is the idea of automated emotions. When I eat cheesecake my initial reaction is to smile because it tastes so good. I can then reflect on this smile and feel happy inside. But didnıt the act of reflecting on my reaction involve cognitive thought and therefore cannot be labeled automatic? Can emotion really be automatic? Itıs just a thought.
I was really fascinated with your comment, Professor Bailly, on Thursday concerning the Greeks. The Greeks proposed that our main goal in life as humans is to be happy. Robert Frank proposes that ³emotions often lead people to behave in ways which conflict with calculative rationality² (pg. 117). What is calculative rationality then? Iıve always felt that emotions lead people to doing that which makes then happier on the inside and wouldnıt that be rational? I guess Iım asking what makes someone be in a superior place in life? Wouldnıt it be through doing that which makes them happier? What really is superior? Is it achieving happiness like the Greeks proposed? I know what my answer is!
Iım still stuck on that question I asked in class on Thursday concerning desire. Where does desire fit into the scheme of emotions? Is the desire to achieve or do something a type of emotion or is it actually a catalyst to experiencing an emotion?
Nilima A.
1) How does Griffith's discussion of evolution (on and around page 206) relate
to emotions? He says that merely looking at the appearance of organisms is not
a proper way to classify them, does this mean that looking at the output side
of emotion is wholly insufficient? He points out that gold is gold based on its
elements, not its history -- are emotions more similar to elements or species?
In other words, is anger anger because the same forces caused it, like a
species, or because the same reaction results, like gold?
2) In Aristotle's category #4 he says that descriptions, such as the word white,
cannot be proven or disproven when stated alone. If there are a series of them,
however, such as "tall, white, horse" one can decide if it is in fact true.
Does this support the idea of affect programs? Could it be argued that in order
to classify or prove an emotion, one must look at the series of processes
undergone in the brain during an emotion, rather than single events?
3)In class many of us thought that Aristotle's categories made sense, yet a lot
of Griffiths' descriptions also make sense. Take one or two ideas that
Aristotle outlines and compare them to Griffiths. You might want to consider
Aristotle's description of primary substances as the ultimate reality and see
if that holds up to Griffith's scientific scrutiny.
Zuzana S.
On page 199 of Griffiths' book starting with the large paragraph, does he mean that of our capacity to group things together, all taxonomic groupings should be 'adopted' to further our understanding of the world? If so, is that not contrary to some, if not most, of his other beliefs?
In general, for chapter 8 of Griffiths' book, what do you think he (as well as the other people he quotes or mentions) would think about genetically modified animals or foods -- those like corn with pig genes spliced into it's DNA?
On the second to last page of chapter 8 (page 226), Griffiths starts talking about pain, and questions, 'Do squids or computers really feel pain?' Has he posed a question which can be interpreted in different ways. What does this question mean? It seems to deal with animal rights, like with chimp testing of new drugs. Also, it doesn't follow his argument of discussing biological inheritance and scientific argument by asking the question if a computer can have feelings -- unless he's talking about artificial intelligence, where one can ask: at what point can an artificially intelligent machine be called a being to itself?