display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
9 ideas
| 5430 | A true belief is not knowledge if it is reached by bad reasoning [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A true belief cannot be called knowledge when it is deduced by a fallacious process of reasoning. If I know all Greeks are men, and Socrates was a man, I cannot know that Socrates was a Greek, even if I falsely infer it. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Another very nice 'Gettier' example, fifty years before Gettier. There is a danger of circularity here, between knowledge, fallacy and truth. Giving them three independent definitions does not look promising. |
| 5429 | True belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from false belief [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief (as when deducing that the late Prime Minister's name began with B, believing it was Balfour, when actually it was Bannerman). | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this the 'Gettier Problem'? It raises the central question of modern epistemology, which is what will be counted as adequate justification to make a true belief qualify as knowledge. How high do we set the bar? |
| 6444 | True belief about the time is not knowledge if I luckily observe a stopped clock at the right moment [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Not all true beliefs are knowledge; the stock example to the contrary is that of a clock which has stopped by which I believe to be going and which I happen to look at when, by chance, it shows the right time. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (My Philosophical Development [1959], Ch.15) | |
| A reaction: [in his 1948:112] Russell had spotted Gettier-type problems long before Gettier. The problem of lucky true beliefs dates back to Plato (Idea 2140). This example is also a problem for reliabilism, if the clock is usually working fine. |
| 5378 | All knowledge (of things and of truths) rests on the foundations of acquaintance [Russell] |
| Full Idea: All our knowledge, both knowledge of things and knowledge of truths, rests upon acquaintance as its foundations. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: Russell here allies himself with Hume, and with the empiricist version of foundationalism. 'Acquaintance' plays the role which 'impressions' played for Hume. He is eliminating any possible cognitive content from the Hume idea, implying pure sense-data. |
| 17639 | Believing a whole science is more than believing each of its propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Although intrinsic obviousness is the basis of every science, it is never, in a fairly advanced science, the whole of our reason for believing any one proposition of the science. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.279) |
| 21579 | Objects are treated as real when they connect with other experiences in a normal way [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Objects of sense are called 'real' when they have the kind of connection with other objects of sense which experience has led us to regard as normal; when they fail this, they are called 'illusions'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 3) | |
| A reaction: This rests rather too much on the concept of 'normal', but offers an attractive coherence account of perception. Direct perceptions are often invoked by anti-coherentists, but I think coherence is just as much needed in that realm. |
| 22326 | Knowledge needs more than a sensitive response; the response must also be appropriate [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Accuracy of response to stimulus does not alone show knowledge, but must be reinforced by appropriateness, i.e. suitability of realising one's purpose. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Analysis of Mind [1921], p.261), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 66 'Rel' | |
| A reaction: The aim of 'realising one's purpose' puts a very pragmatist spin on this. The point is a good one, and seems to apply particularly to Nozick's accurate 'tracking' account of knowledge. |
| 5365 | Dreams can be explained fairly scientifically if we assume a physical world [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Dreams are more or less suggested by what we call waking life, and are capable of being more or less accounted for on scientific principles if we assume that there really is a physical world. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit circular, since scientific principles depend entirely on the assumption that there is a physical world. No doubt if we assume fairies, 'fairy lore' will explain everything. 'Explanation' is the basic concept here. |
| 21578 | Global scepticism is irrefutable, but can't replace our other beliefs, and just makes us hesitate [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Universal scepticism, though logically irrefutable, is practically barren; it can only, therefore, give a certain flavour of hesitancy to our beliefs, and cannot be used to substitute other beliefs for them. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 3) | |
| A reaction: Spot on. There is no positive evidence for scepticism, so must just register it as the faintest of possibilities, like the existence of secretive fairies. |