10 ideas
| 2945 | Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2) |
| 2946 | You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7) | |
| A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance. |
| 22361 | Contextual values are acceptable in research, but not in its final evaluation [Reichenbach, by Reiss/Sprenger] |
| Full Idea: Reichenbach's claim is interpreted as saying that contextual values, which may have contributed to the discovery of a theory, are irrelevant for justifying the acceptance of a theory, and for assessing how evidence bears on theory. | |
| From: report of Hans Reichenbach (On Probability and Induction [1938], pp.36-7) by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This influential idea is very helpful. It allows Galileo and co to pursus all sorts of highly personal and quirky lines of enquiry, because we only demand full objectivity when it is all over. Very good! |
| 16640 | Form is the principle that connects a thing's constitution (rather than being operative) [Hill,N] |
| Full Idea: Form is the state and condition of a thing, a result of the connection among its material principles; it is a constituting principle, not an operative one. | |
| From: Nicholas Hill (Philosophia Epicurea [1610], n 35) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau presents this as a denial of form, but it looks to me like someone fishing for what form could be in a more scientific context. Aristotle would have approved of 'principles'. Hill seems to defend the categorical against the dispositional. |
| 18278 | Kant showed that our perceptions are partly constructed from our concepts [Reichenbach] |
| Full Idea: It was Kant's great discovery that the object of knowledge is not simply given but constructed, and that it contains conceptual elements not contained in pure perception. | |
| From: Hans Reichenbach (The Theory of Relativity and A Priori Knowledge [1965], p.49), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap |
| 9329 | Justification is coherence with a background system; if irrefutable, it is knowledge [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: Justification is coherence with a background system which, when irrefutable, converts to knowledge. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006]) | |
| A reaction: A problem (as the theory stands here) would be whether you have to be aware that the coherence is irrefutable, which would seem to require a pretty powerful intellect. If one needn't be aware of the irrefutability, how does it help my justification? |
| 9330 | Generalization seems to be more fundamental to minds than spotting similarities [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: There is a level of generalization we share with other animals in the responses to objects that suggest that generalization is a more fundamental operation of the mind than the observation of similarities. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006]) | |
| A reaction: He derives this from Reid (1785) - Lehrer's hero - who argued against Hume that we couldn't spot similarities if we hadn't already generalized to produce the 'respect' of the similarity. Interesting. I think Reid must be right. |
| 9328 | All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them [Lehrer] |
| Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them. | |
| From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006]) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'. |
| 8410 | A theory of causal relations yields an asymmetry which defines the direction of time [Reichenbach, by Salmon] |
| Full Idea: Reichenbach wanted to implement a causal theory of time. He did not stipulate that causes are temporally prior to their effects. Instead, he constructs a theory of causal relations to yield a causal asymmetry which is used to define temporal priority. | |
| From: report of Hans Reichenbach (The Direction of Time [1956]) by Wesley Salmon - Probabilistic Causality | |
| A reaction: I find his approach implausible. I suspect strong empiricism is behind it - that he wants to build from observable causes to unobservable time, not vice versa. But normal intuition sees time as one of the bedrocks of reality, making events possible. |
| 14935 | The direction of time is grounded in the direction of causation [Reichenbach, by Ladyman/Ross] |
| Full Idea: Reichenbach argued that temporal asymmetry is grounded in causal asymmetry. | |
| From: report of Hans Reichenbach (The Direction of Time [1956]) by J Ladyman / D Ross - Every Thing Must Go | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that I can make sense of giving priority either to time or to causation when it comes to this asymmetry. How do you decide which one is boss? |