This paper argues that Robert Whytt's concepts of 'particular' and 'general sympathy' in animate ... more This paper argues that Robert Whytt's concepts of 'particular' and 'general sympathy' in animate bodies are homologous with a less-discussed concept of sympathy in David Hume. There are at least three different concepts of sympathy in Hume's Treatise of human nature. Hume is rather critical of alleged sympathies between different bodies, but he elaborates a much-discussed theory of sympathy explaining the interpersonal exchange of sentiments. He invokes a third concept to designate the phenomenon of mutual responsiveness between, and coordination for a common end among, the parts of the mind while suggesting that the mind's unity and identity is of the same kind as the unity of organized living bodies. Without deploying this concept explicitly, he speaks a remarkably identical language while discussing social coordination and convention. This third concept is congruent with the physiological sympathies that Whytt finds in animate bodies. According to the unfolding picture, Whytt and Hume provide conceptually highly integrated accounts of living bodies, minds, and societies inspired by an idea of vital matter.
This chapter introduces several versions of mental fictionalism, along with the main lines of obj... more This chapter introduces several versions of mental fictionalism, along with the main lines of objection and reply. It begins by considering the debate between eliminative materialism (“eliminativism”) versus realism about mental states as conceived in “folk psychology” (i.e., beliefs, desires, intentions, etc.). Mental fictionalism offers a way to transcend the debate by allowing talk of mental states without a commitment to realism. The idea is to treat folk psychology as a “story” and three different elaborations of this are reviewed. First, prefix semantics paraphrases a sentence like ‘Biden believes that Trump lost’ as ‘According to folk psychology, Biden believes that Trump lost’, whereby ontological commitment to belief is avoided. Similarly, pretense theory suggests that we do not assert ‘Biden believes that Trump lost’, but only pretend to assert it. Third, affective theory proposes that such discourse is used in a metaphorical way to understand a person’s affective and dispositional states vis-a-vis the community. The main objections concern whether folk psychology has the features of storytelling, and whether mental fictionalism ends up being self-refuting. The chapter also recaps a less discussed fictionalist view about “qualia” or phenomenal states, and closes by summarizing the papers contained in the volume.
David Hume’s ‘science of man’ is frequently interpreted as an enterprise inspired in crucial resp... more David Hume’s ‘science of man’ is frequently interpreted as an enterprise inspired in crucial respects by Newton’s Principia. However, a closer look at Hume’s central concepts and methodological commitment suggests that his Treatise of Human Nature is much more congruent with the research traditions that arose in the wake of Newton’s Opticks. In this paper I argue that the label Hume frequently attached to his project, ‘anatomy of the mind,’ is a metaphor that, considered in itself, seems to be expressing a commitment to the study of human nature in analogy with organic living nature. In this vein, Hume’s anatomy relies on conceptual and methodological resources derived from a chemical and physiological perspective on the natural cognitive and affective functioning of human beings. Since the idea of natural functioning provides various options for deriving normative considerations, Hume’s account can be seen as a middle-range theory that connects the discourses of organic nature and ...
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