Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P, Anaxarchus and Xenocrates

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8 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

19542	It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: The proposition that understanding does not involve knowledge is widespread (for example, in discussions of what philosophy aims at), but hardly withstands scrutiny. If you do not know how a jet engine works, you do not understand how it works.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.24)
	A reaction: This seems a bit disingenuous. As in 'Theaetetus', knowing the million parts of a jet engine is not to understand it. More strongly - how could knowledge of an infinity of separate propositional truths amount to understanding on their own?

19543	To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: An essential prerequisite for useful discussion of the relation between knowledge and understanding is systematic explicitness about what is to be known or understood.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.25)
	A reaction: This is better. I say what needs to be known for understanding is the essence of the item under discussion (my PhD thesis!). Obviously understanding needs some knowledge, but I take it that epistemology should be understanding-first. That is the main aim.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First

19541	Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: If we say our cognitive aim is to get knowledge, the opposing views are the naturalistic view that what matters is just true belief (or just 'getting by'), or that there are rival epistemic goods such as understanding and wisdom.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.17)
	A reaction: [compressed summary] I'm a fan of understanding. The accumulation of propositional knowledge would relish knowing the mass of every grain of sand on a beach. If you say the propositions should be 'important', other values are invoked.

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues

19540	Don't confuse justified belief with justified believers [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: Much theorizing about justification conflates issues of justified belief with issues of justified/blameless believers.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (What is Knowledge-First Epistemology? [2014], p.12)
	A reaction: [They cite Kent Bach 1985] Presumably the only thing that really justifies a belief is the truth, or the actual facts. You could then say 'p is a justified belief, though no one actually believes it'. E.g. the number of stars is odd.

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / b. Need for justification

19539	If knowledge is unanalysable, that makes justification more important [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: If knowledge is indeed unanalyzable, that could be seen as a liberation of justification to assume importance in its own right.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (What is Knowledge-First Epistemology? [2014], p.11)
	A reaction: [They cite Kvanvig 2003:192 and Greco 2010:9-] See Scruton's Idea 3897. I suspect that we should just give up discussing 'knowledge', which is a woolly and uninformative term, and focus on where the real epistemological action is.

13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism

3061	Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing.
	From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche

5880	Xenocrates held that the soul had no form or substance, but was number [Xenocrates, by Cicero]
	Full Idea: Xenocrates denied that the soul had form or any substance, but said that it was number, and the power of number, as had been held by Pythagoras long before, was the highest in nature.
	From: report of Xenocrates (fragments/reports [c.327 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.x.20
	A reaction: This shows how strong the Pythagorean influence was in the Academy. This is not totally stupid. Dawkins holds that the essence of DNA is information, which can be expressed mathematically. Xenocrates was a functionalist.

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 2. Semantics

19538	Entailment is modelled in formal semantics as set inclusion (where 'mammals' contains 'cats') [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: Entailment is modelled in formal semantics as set inclusion. 'Cat' entails 'mammal' because the cats are a subset of the mammals.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (What is Knowledge-First Epistemology? [2014], p.10)
	A reaction: I would have thought that this was only one type of entailment. 'Travelling to Iceland entails flying'. Travelling includes flying, the reverse of cats/mammals, to a very complex set-theoretic account is needed. Interesting.