5 ideas
| 19696 | There are reasons 'for which' a belief is held, reasons 'why' it is believed, and reasons 'to' believe it [Neta] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish between something's being a 'reason for which' a creature believes something, and its being a 'reason why' a creature believes something. ...We must also distinguish a 'reason for which' from a 'reason to' believe something. | |
| From: Ram Neta (The Basing Relation [2011], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't spell the distinctions out clearly. I take it that 'for which' is my personal justification, 'why' is the dodgy prejudices that cause my belief. and 'to' is some actual good reasons, of which I may be unaware. |
| 19697 | The basing relation of a reason to a belief should both support and explain the belief [Neta] |
| Full Idea: A reason has a 'basing relation' with a belief if it (i) rationally supports holding the belief, and (ii) explains why the belief is held. | |
| From: Ram Neta (The Basing Relation [2011], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Presumably a false reason would fit this account. Why not talk of 'grounding', or is that word now reserved for metaphysics? If I hypnotise you into a belief, would my hypnotic power be the basing reason? Fits (ii), but not (i). |
| 19729 | 'Modal epistemology' demands a connection between the belief and facts in possible worlds [Black,T] |
| Full Idea: In 'modal epistemologies' a belief counts as knowledge only if there is a modal connection - a connection not only to the actual world, but also to other non-actual possible worlds - between the belief and the facts of the matter. | |
| From: Tim Black (Modal and Anti-Luck Epistemology [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: [Pritchard 2005 seems to be a source for this] This sounds to me a bit like Nozick's tracking or sensitivity theory. Nozick is, I suppose, diachronic (time must pass, for the tracking), where this theory is synchronic. |
| 19728 | Gettier and lottery cases seem to involve luck, meaning bad connection of beliefs to facts [Black,T] |
| Full Idea: The protagonists in Gettier cases and in lottery cases fail to have knowledge because their beliefs are true simply as a matter of luck, where this means that their beliefs themselves are not appropriately connected to the facts. | |
| From: Tim Black (Modal and Anti-Luck Epistemology [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: The lottery problem is you correctly believe 'my ticket won't win the lottery' even though you don't seem to actually know it won't. Is the Gettier problem simply the problem of lucky knowledge? 'Luck' is a rather vague concept. |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
| From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
| A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |