Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Pindar and Juan Comesaa

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5 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / a. Reliable knowledge
19727 Reliabilist knowledge is evidence based belief, with high conditional probability [Comesaņa]
     Full Idea: The best definition of reliabilism seems to be: the agent has evidence, and bases the belief on the evidence, and the actual conditional reliability of the belief on the evidence is high enough.
     From: Juan Comesaņa (Reliabilism [2011], 4.4)
     A reaction: This is Comesaņa's own theory, derived from Alston 1998, and based on conditional probabilities.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / b. Anti-reliabilism
19725 In a sceptical scenario belief formation is unreliable, so no beliefs at all are justified? [Comesaņa]
     Full Idea: If the processes of belief-formation are unreliable (perhaps in a sceptical scenario), then reliabilism has the consequence that those victims can never have justified beliefs (which Sosa calls the 'new evil demon problem').
     From: Juan Comesaņa (Reliabilism [2011], 4.1)
     A reaction: That may be the right outcome. Could you have mathematical knowledge in a sceptical scenario? But that would be different processes. If I might be a brain in a vat, then it's true that I have no perceptual knowledge.
19726 How do we decide which exact process is the one that needs to be reliable? [Comesaņa]
     Full Idea: The reliabilist has the problem of finding a principled way of selecting, for each token-process of belief formation, the type whose reliability ratio must be high enough for the belief to be justified.
     From: Juan Comesaņa (Reliabilism [2011], 4.3)
     A reaction: The question is which exact process I am employing for some visual knowledge (and how the process should be described). Seeing, staring, squinting, glancing.... This seems to be called the 'generality problem'.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
20653 Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
     Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
     From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
     A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
6017 Nomos is king [Pindar]
     Full Idea: Nomos is king.
     From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture
     A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed.