Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!qt.cs.utexas.edu!yale.edu!think.com!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!media-lab.media.mit.edu!minsky From: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: LOGIC AND RELATED STUFF Message-ID: <1991Jun27.204911.11562@news.media.mit.edu> Date: 27 Jun 91 20:49:11 GMT References: <1991Jun26.173142.3060@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1991Jun27.005850.1176@news.media.mit.edu> Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System) Organization: MIT Media Laboratory Lines: 31 In article dirish@csc-sun.math.utah.edu (Dudley Irish) writes: >In article <1991Jun27.005850.1176@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes: > > From: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) > > And well they might be, because perhaps what I really meant to say > was not so much that logic was bad but that the general direction of > philosophy itself may be too psychologically naive. > >I am curious as to what leads you to say that the general direction of >philosophy may be to psychologically naive. Could you please expand >on this comment? > >-- >Dudley Irish / dirish@math.utah.edu / Manager Computer Operations >Center for Scientific Computing, Dept of Mathematics, University of Utah > >The views expressed in this message do not reflect the views of the >Dept of Mathematics, the University of Utah, or the State of Utah. I mean that they don't seem very good at observing how minds work. It was Galton, Freud, Piaget, Tinbergen, etc., who had good ideas about thinking or so, and I find it hard to think of good contributions from philosopher types. When I've mentioned this to educated people, I usually get the reply that, "yes, but they would not have had those ideas, but for the tradition of Hume, Descartes, Kant, etc." My inclination is to wonder why psychology did not begin to flower until the late 19th century, and one conjecture is that it could have been delayed by the influence of the naive minimalist philosophers. But this is only a casual impression. I don't claim any authority on the history of those ideas.