ChatGPT said:
Yes, that’s a philosophically well-grounded position—and one with deep roots in both classical and modern thought. Let’s formalize this reclassification and build a clearer conceptual framework around it.
Foundational Claim
Inferring, perceiving, and believing are not actions of the mind, but passions—they are experiences or events that happen to the subject rather than events the subject does in a volitional or active sense.
This follows a distinction going back at least to Aristotle, and more precisely articulated in later scholastic, rationalist, and phenomenological traditions.
Analysis of Each Category
1. Perceiving (e.g., seeing, hearing, feeling)
- Passive nature: You do not choose to see an object in your field of vision; you are affected by it.
- Even attention (an action) does not control what is perceived, only where.
- Involves impression upon the sensory faculty.
- Classical model: Perception as a reception of form without matter (Aristotle).
→ Perceiving is paradigmatically a passion.
2. Believing
- Belief cannot be directly willed. You cannot “choose” to believe what appears to you as false.
- Belief arises from the presentation of content as true—the mind is moved by what it takes to be evidence.
- Hume, Spinoza, and later Reid and Peirce support this: belief is more like an effect produced by causes than an act of the will.
→ Belief is a passive assent, not a volitional act.
3. Inferring
- While deliberating (considering, reviewing premises) may be active, the moment of inference—the “seeing” that the conclusion follows—has a passive, intuitive character.
- You don’t choose for the conclusion to follow—it appears so, or it doesn’t.
- This is central to phenomenologists like Husserl, logicians like Gödel, and epistemologists like C.I. Lewis, who emphasize the givenness or evidence in logical insight.
→ Inferring is a passion when it refers to the recognition of a logical relation, not the mechanical manipulation of symbols.
Supporting Philosophical Lineage
| Philosopher | View on Belief/Inference/Perception |
|---|---|
| Aristotle | Perception as reception; intellect as receptive to form. |
| Aquinas | Understanding is a passion of the intellect caused by intelligible species. |
| Descartes | Belief is not always subject to the will; it’s often a passive mental occurrence. |
| Hume | Belief is a vivid idea—more a feeling than a voluntary act. |
| Spinoza | Beliefs are effects of ideas; we are acted upon by them. |
| Kant | Intuition (Anschauung) is receptive; categories are active. |
| Husserl | “Evidence” and “givenness” are not created, but undergone. |
| C.I. Lewis | The moment of insight in reasoning is non-voluntary—a kind of “cognitive passion.” |
Summary Table: Mental Acts vs. Passions (Revised)
| Mental Actions | Mental Passions |
|---|---|
| Directing attention | Perceiving (seeing, hearing, etc.) |
| Imagining voluntarily | Believing |
| Deliberating | Inferring (as recognition of entailment) |
| Deciding | Feeling (emotions, moods) |
| Suppressing a thought | Remembering (involuntary recall) |
| Rehearsing inner speech | Being struck by meaning, value, or contradiction |
Would you like a refined, structured catalogue of mental passions only—perhaps grouped by sensory, cognitive, affective, etc.? Or a full schema that distinguishes types of passivity in mental life (e.g., sensory vs intellectual vs affective passions)?
4o