1.5 Some useful terminology and a convention It will be useful to end this section by establishing a simple convention and introducing some terminology. The convention has already been at work in this chapter, but has yet to be made explicit. It is a convention for marking the difference between using a word and mentioning it. Italy has a capital city, and the English language contains a word for that city, but the word and the city are distinct entities. When we are talking about the word rather than what the word i
Introduction This unit introduces key questions about language and thought, such as how can language, which is public and accessible, be used to convey thoughts, which seem hidden from view. This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Thought and experience: themes in the philosophy of mind (AA308).
Further reading General introductions to the philosophy of mind tend to be ahistorical and vary greatly in accessibility and coverage. E.J. Lowe covers virtually the whole range of topics in his An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind (2000). For less coverage but more detail see Jaegwon Kim's slightly more advanced but excellent Philosophy of Mind (1996). Tim Crane's The Elements of Mind (2001) is another very good but more advanced introduction to current issues and contains one of t
7 Summary We have been primarily concerned to explore in a preliminary fashion the domain of the mental. We have looked briefly at various different kinds of actual and possible minds – normal and abnormal human minds, animal minds, angelic minds, and so on – and at the variety of mental phenomena – thought, perception, sensation, emotion, etc. Describing what a mind might be like is partly a matter of describing the kinds of mental phenomena that the mind in question exhibits. Conceiving of what
3 Varieties of mental phenomena We have been considering, in a very general and highly speculative way, what kinds of creatures have minds and wondering what these minds might be like. In doing so, we have made reference to various features or elements of mentality, such as thought, sensation, perception, imagination and emotion. These things seem to be typical examples of mentality. But what else counts as mental? 3 Hero and author What, if anything, does Doctor Faustus tell us about its notorious author? Having read the play, do you feel that it supports or invalidates the dominant view of Marlowe as the bad boy of Elizabethan drama? There is certainly no doubt that the play has a defiant streak, that it calls into question the justice of a universe that places restrictions on human achievement and demands the eternal suffering of those who disobey its laws. On this level, it does seem to be the work of an autho 6 Hospital care In most aspects of medical care, the rich generally enjoyed better access to medical services and better-quality services than the poor. The only exception to this rule was hospital care. In the nineteenth century the ‘deserving’ poor – whose respectability was guaranteed by the need for them to have a letter of admission from a subscriber or employer – could receive medical and surgical treatment in charitable hospitals. The very poor could obtain care through Poor Law hospitals, whi 4 Domestic care Despite their best efforts, everyone fell ill at some point in their lives. Although historians of medicine write a great deal about how the sick were cared for by doctors and in hospitals, in the past (as nowadays) minor complaints were diagnosed and treated at home, almost entirely without the help of medical professionals, using special diets and home-made or bought-in remedies. As with preserving health, poor families had relatively few resources for treatment. They might seek advice from References 12 Glossary Millenialism (or Millenarianism): the belief and practices, religious and/or political, which seek a comprehensive, salvationary solution for social, political, economic and personal issues. Although originally pre-Christian, the term became identified with the myth of Christ's return after a thousand years. Millenialism, which appealed to some Dissenting sects and other non-religious groups in Britain and the US, played a part in Owen's thinking after 1816. From time to time he announ 6.3.3 Specific heats Finally, we must consider Black's contribution to the discovery of specific heats, the fact that different substances take up heat at different rates. Two experiments on mercury and water had indicated the problem. Fahrenheit had found that mixing equal volumes of mercury and water produced a striking result. If the mercury was initially hotter than the water, the temperature of the mixture was less than the average, and the reverse was true if the water was originally hotter. Martine's exper 6.3.2 Heat of vaporisation Black read a paper on these experiments to the Glasgow Literary Society in April 1762, and then turned to the investigation of vaporisation. For reasons he himself found difficult to explain, Black was initially reluctant to accept that there was a similar heat of vaporisation. This was in spite of the fact that he (and presumably many cooks) had observed that it takes far longer to boil off water than it takes to raise water to boiling point. In October 1762, he devised a very simple experim 5.1 Early career James Hutton (1726–97) conforms fairly closely to Emerson's identikit picture of an intellectual of the Scottish Enlightenment. His chief scientific work was his Theory of the Earth, which was launched at meetings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1785 and eventually expanded and published in two large volumes, ten years later, in 1795. 3.4 The role of the Edinburgh Town Council This route incidentally leads us to another important feature of the movement, namely the role of the Edinburgh Town Council and its provosts. (The English equivalent would be a lord mayor.) Throughout the eighteenth century, the Town Council, with a policy of enlightened self-interest, promoted the city by sponsoring or patronising its academic, medical and scientific life. The Council regarded the city's university, infirmary and medical school as institutions which, if given enough prestig 3.3 Architecture Printing and publishing, then, had their connections with the Enlightenment programme. Architecture too was related. The Adam family of architects (the father and his two sons) moved in the Edinburgh circle of the intellectuals. The young Robert Adam, for example, attended both McLaurin's mathematics lectures and Monro's anatomy lectures at the university, and his home life was enlivened by regular visits from the leading lights of the city. As one contemporary described the household, in a r Introduction This unit looks at the way meanings and values are assigned to textiles. You will examine how a piece of cloth can define wealth, status, and, in the past, office. 2.6 Books and the internet as sources Finally, let's come back to the different types of modern sources as indicated in Figure 1. Many of these types are familiar to you in one way or another, so we can be brief. The course A219 uses set books that students registered with the Open University are required to purchase. Three of them are clearly modern schol 2.4.3 Literature This doesn't have the kind of physical presence that material evidence does, but it has a different strength: it gives us, more literally, voices from the past. We can, as it were, hear the ancient Greeks and Romans speak, about what happened, about how they felt, about what they thought, and experience how they expressed themselves. This gives us a rather different access to their world, complementary to the one we get from material culture. Like the word ‘arts’, literature can sug Introduction This unit aims to get you started on exploring the Classical world by introducing you to the sources upon which you can build your knowledge and understanding. The unit also gets you started on an exploration of both time and space in the Classical world. This unit is an adapted extract from the Open University course Exploring the classical world (A219). 5 Conclusion: you know many things ‘Writing what you know’ is a large and rich project, one that provides an endless resource, and one that can be undertaken in all the types of writing discussed in this unit – poetry, fiction and life writing. The skill lies in reawakening your senses to the world around you, and then using what you find with discrimination. By realising the potentials of your own life experience, you will be collecting the materials necessary in order to write. ‘Writing what you know’ can amount to
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