display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
4 ideas
3088 | Analyticity is postulated because we can't imagine some things being true, but we may just lack imagination [Harman] |
Full Idea: Analyticity is postulated to explain why we cannot imagine certain things being true. A better postulate is that we are not good at imagining things. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 6.7) |
3089 | Only lack of imagination makes us think that 'cats are animals' is analytic [Harman] |
Full Idea: That 'cats are animals' is often cited as an analytic truth. But (as Putnam points out) the inability to imagine this false is just a lack of imagination. They might turn out to be radio-controlled plastic spies from Mars. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 6.7) |
18258 | We can only know the exterior world via our ideas [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
Full Idea: We can have knowledge of what is outside us only through the mediation of ideas in us. | |
From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], p.63), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' |
3101 | Memories are not just preserved, they are constantly reinferred [Harman] |
Full Idea: I favour the inferential view of memory over the preservation view. …One constantly reinfers old beliefs. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 12.1) | |
A reaction: This has a grain of truth, but seems a distortion. An image of the old home floats into my mind when I am thinking about something utterly unconnected. When we search memory we may be inferring and explaining, but the same applies to searching images. |