4 ideas
21373 | We become objective when we detach ourselves from the world [Janaway] |
Full Idea: We apprehend the world purely objectively, only when we no longer know that we belong to it. | |
From: Christopher Janaway (Schopenhauer [1994], II:368), quoted by Christopher Janaway - Schopenhauer 6 'Objectivity' | |
A reaction: Since we are not actually detached from the world, that makes objective thought an act of imagination. And none the worse for that, I would say, since philosophers don't seem to understand the central epistemological importance of imagination. |
19508 | Contextualism needs a semantics for knowledge sentences that are partly indexical [Schiffer,S] |
Full Idea: Contextualist semantics must capture the 'indexical' nature of knowledge claims, the fact that different utterances of a knowledge sentence with no apparent indexical terms can express different propositions. | |
From: Stephen Schiffer (Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism [1996], p.325), quoted by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.5 | |
A reaction: Schiffer tries to show that this is too difficult, and DeRose defends contextualism against the charge. |
19509 | The indexical aspect of contextual knowledge might be hidden, or it might be in what 'know' means [Schiffer,S] |
Full Idea: One might have a 'hidden-indexical' theory of knowledge sentences: they contain constituents that are not the semantic values of any terms; ...or 'to know' itself might be indexical, as in 'I know[easy] I have hands' or 'I know[tough] I have hands'. | |
From: Stephen Schiffer (Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism [1996], p.326-7), quoted by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.5 | |
A reaction: [very compressed] Given the choice, I would have thought it was in 'know', since to say 'either you know p or you don't' sounds silly to me. |
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? |