Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by David Papineau

Quote by David Papineau

“A century ago mainstream science was still quite happy to countenance vital and mental powers which had a 'downwards' causal influence on the physical realm in a straightforwardly interactionist way. It was only in the middle of the last century that science finally concluded that there are no such non-physical forces. At which point a whole pile of smart philosophers (Feigl, Smart, Putnam, Davidson, Lewis) quickly pointed out that mental, biological and social phenomena must themselves be physical, in order to produce the physical effects that they do.”

Quote by David Papineau

Create image

Author

David Papineau
David Papineau

David Papineau is a British philosopher known for his contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of language. His research spans across various fields, including philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and moral philosophy. more

You May Also Like

“There is a sinister anachronistic interpretation of the aesthetic state as some kind of totalitarian regime that puts aesthetic over moral standards; one associates it with national-socialism. But this has nothing to do with the romantics, whose ideal of the aesthetic state has much more to do with the republican tradition.”

KindStatesMoralRepublicanStandardsIdealsTraditionSocialismInterpretationAestheticRegimesAssociatesSinisterTotalitarian Regimes
Author:Frederick C. Beiser
Create image

“Kripke says that physicalists like me can't explain the 'apparent contingency' of mind-brain identities. He maintains that, if I really believed that pains are C-fibres, then I ought no longer to have any room for the thought that 'they' might come apart. His argument is that, since pains aren't identified via some contingent description, but in terms of how they feel, I have no good way of constructing a possible world, so to speak, where C-fibres are present yet pains absent.”

IfsWorldWayFeelsMindMightPainSpeakTermRoomsBrainIdentityOughtArgumentLike MeDescriptionAbsentGood WayContingency
Author:David Papineau
Create image

“The romantics were reacting against a modern culture that divided individuals from themselves (through specialisation in the division of labor), from others (the competitive market place) and from nature, which had been reduced down to a machine through technology. The antidote to such division is unity and wholeness, which means feeling at home again in the world.”

WorldMeanFeelingsHomeCultureIndividualTechnologyModernLaborMachinesUnityDivisionDividedWholenessAntidoteReactingModern CultureDivision Of Labor
Author:Frederick C. Beiser
Create image