display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
6 ideas
| 21631 | To know, believe, hope or fear, one must grasp the thought, but not when you fail to do them [Williamson] |
| Full Idea: To know, believe, hope, or fear that A, one must grasp the thought that A. In contrast, to fail to know, believe, hope or fear that A, one need not grasp the thought that A. | |
| From: Timothy Williamson (Vagueness [1994], 9.3 c) | |
| A reaction: A simple point, which at least shows that propositional attitudes are a two-stage operation. |
| 16419 | No one has yet devised a rationality test [New Sci.] |
| Full Idea: The financial sector has been clamouring for a rationality test for years. | |
| From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29) | |
| A reaction: Many aspects of intelligence tests do actually pick out what I would call rationality (which includes 'rational intuition', a new favourite of mine). But they are mixed in with rather mechanical geeky sort of tests. |
| 16417 | About a third of variation in human intelligence is environmental [New Sci.] |
| Full Idea: Possibly a third of the variation in our intelligence is down to the environment in which we grew up - nutrition and education, for example. | |
| From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29) | |
| A reaction: This presumably leaves the other two-thirds to derive from genetics. I am a big believer in environment. Swapping babies between extremes of cultural environment would hugely affect intelligence, say I. |
| 16418 | People can be highly intelligent, yet very stupid [New Sci.] |
| Full Idea: You really can be highly intelligent, and at the same time very stupid. | |
| From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2013.10.29) | |
| A reaction: This is closely related to my observation (from a lifetime of study) that a talent for philosophy has a very limited correlation with standard notions of high intelligence. What matters is how conscious reasoning and intuition relate. Greek 'phronesis'. |
| 19484 | Psychologists measure personality along five dimensions [New Sci.] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists have long thought that measuring on a scale of just five personality dimensions - agreeableness, extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness and openness to new experiences - can capture all human variations in behaviour and attitude. | |
| From: New Scientist writers (New Scientist articles [2013], 2015.06.13) | |
| A reaction: Researchers are considering a sixth - called 'honesty-humility' - which is roughly how devious people are. The five mentioned here seem to be a well entrenched orthodoxy among professional psychologists. Is personality more superficial than character? |
| 21600 | 'Blue' is not a family resemblance, because all the blues resemble in some respect [Williamson] |
| Full Idea: 'Blue' is vague by some standards, for it has borderline cases, but that does not make it a family resemblance term, for all the shades of blue resemble each other in some respect. | |
| From: Timothy Williamson (Vagueness [1994], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably the point of family resemblance is that fringe members as still linked to the family, despite having lost the main features. A bit of essentialism seems needed here. |