Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Melvin Fitting, Roger Scruton and Martin Heidegger

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8 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 5. A Priori Synthetic
Maybe our knowledge of truth and causation is synthetic a priori [Scruton]
     Full Idea: 'Every event has a cause' and 'truth is correspondence to facts' are candidates for being synthetic a priori knowledge.
     From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 13.2)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perception (which involves an assessment) is a higher state than sensation [Scruton]
     Full Idea: Perception is a higher state than sensation: it involves not just a response to the outer world, but also an assessment of it.
     From: Roger Scruton (Animal Rights and Wrongs [1996], p.14)
     A reaction: This seems to me a simple but really important distinction, even though it wickedly uses the word 'higher', which Greeks like but post-Humeans struggle with. But we all know it is higher, don't we?
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
Touch only seems to reveal primary qualities [Scruton]
     Full Idea: Touch seems to deliver a purely primary-quality account of the world.
     From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 24)
     A reaction: Interesting, though a little over-confident. It seems occasionally possible for touch to be an illusion.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
We only conceive of primary qualities as attached to secondary qualities [Scruton]
     Full Idea: Bradley argued that we cannot conceive of primary qualities except as attached to secondary qualities.
     From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 10.1)
If primary and secondary qualities are distinct, what has the secondary qualities? [Scruton]
     Full Idea: If primary and secondary qualities are distinct, what do secondary qualities inhere in?
     From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], Ch.10 n)
     A reaction: What is the problem? A pin causes me pain, but I know the pain isn't in the pin. It is the same with colour. It is a mental property, if you like, triggered by a wavelength of radiation.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
The representational theory says perceptual states are intentional states [Scruton]
     Full Idea: The representational theory is the unsurprising view that perceptual states are intentional, like beliefs, emotions and desires.
     From: Roger Scruton (Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey [1994], 23.3)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems
There are no raw sense-data - our experiences are of the sound or colour of something [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: We always take a noise as the sound of something; we always take a hue as the color of something. We simply do not experience raw, uninterpreted sense-data - these are the inventions of philosophers.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], 207/163-4), quoted by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 3.§31-3
     A reaction: This is something like the modern view of sense-data as promoted by John McDowell, rather than the experiential atoms of Russell and Moore. Experience is holistic, but that doesn't mean we can't analyse it into components.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 5. Interpretation
Perceived objects always appear in a context [Heidegger]
     Full Idea: The perceptual 'something' is always in the middle of something else, it always forms part of a 'field'.
     From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], p.4), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 3 'Perceptual'
     A reaction: Sounds like our knowledge of electrons. Nice point. Standard analytic discussions of perceiving a glass always treat it in isolation, when it is on an expensive table near a brandy bottle. Or near a hammer.