Friday, May 27, 2011

A paper by Dallas Willard on intentionality

4 comments:

GREV said...

Love this quote from the article --

Simone Weil -- "When we come to exhibit the birth of thought we shall find that it is born into a universe that is already ordered."

Am I mistaken or is it the idea of ordering or orderliness already pre-exisitng that really annoys some in these debates? Maybe too open ended a question.

William said...

Grev:

Interesting how this quote is (mis) used.

Weil here in the Lectures is referring to experiments showing that someone who hears a knocking pattern rapped on a table can "repeat it without counting" the number of knocks. She says that is because the body is noting the pattern without thought.

It seems to me that she is conflating unconscious processing of the brain with "the body" and that Willard is conflating "the body" as defined by Weil with the cosmos prior to humans.

So, nice idea, but out of context twice.

I really like Weil, btw.

GREV said...

William -- thanks for that. The Lectures; is it available online? Is that the full title?

While it is out of context; is there an application that can be argued for?

William said...

amazon:

Lectures on Philosophy


...and I think Weil would completely agree with the application done, that the mind comes to consciousness in an ordered world--just that she she considers the brain's evolution to be part of that ordered world.