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6855
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Interesting philosophers hardly every give you explicitly valid arguments [Martin,M]
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Full Idea:
Notice that very few philosophers - certainly almost none of the ones who are interesting to read - give you explicitly valid arguments.
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From:
Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.134)
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A reaction:
I never thought that was going to happen in philosophy. What I do get is, firstly, lots of interesting reasons for holding beliefs, and a conviction that good beliefs need good reasons, and, secondly, a really coherent view of the world.
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2764
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Full coherence might involve consistency and mutual entailment of all propositions [Blanshard, by Dancy,J]
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Full Idea:
Blanshard says that in a fully coherent system there would not only be consistency, but every proposition would be entailed by the others, and no proposition would stand outside the system.
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From:
report of Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought [1939], 2:265) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 8.1
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A reaction:
Hm. If a proposition is entailed by the others, then it is a necessary truth (given the others) which sounds deterministic. You could predict all the truths you had never encountered. See 1578:178 for quote.
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6856
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Valid arguments can be rejected by challenging the premises or presuppositions [Martin,M]
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Full Idea:
Putting forward a valid argument isn't necessarily going to succeed in getting someone to see things your way, because if they don't accept the conclusion, they ask which premises they should reject, or whether an illegitimate assumption is being made.
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From:
Michael Martin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.136)
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A reaction:
Valid arguments are still vital. It is just that good philosophers realise the problem noted here, and spend huge stretches of discussion on establishing acceptance of premises, and showing that there are no dodgy presuppositions.
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19080
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Coherence tests for truth without implying correspondence, so truth is not correspondence [Blanshard, by Young,JO]
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Full Idea:
Blanshard said that coherent justification leads to coherence truth. It might be said that coherence is a test for truth, but truth is correspondence. But coherence doesn't guarantee correspondence, and coherence is a test, so truth is not correspondence.
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From:
report of Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought [1939], Ch.26) by James O. Young - The Coherence Theory of Truth §2.2
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A reaction:
[compression of Young's summary] Rescher (1973) says that Blanshard's argument depends on coherence being an infallible test for truth, which it isn't.
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