38 ideas
| 7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: Good reductionism (also called 'hierarchical reductionism') consists not of replacing one field of knowledge with another, but of connecting or unifying them. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: A nice simple clarification. In this sense I am definitely a reductionist about mind (indeed, about everything). There is nothing threatening to even 'spiritual' understanding by saying that it is connected to the brain. |
| 2730 | Because 'gold is malleable' is necessary does not mean that it is analytic [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Taking the proposition that gold is malleable to be necessary does not commit one to considering it analytic. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.116) |
| 2715 | Beliefs are based on perception, memory, introspection or reason [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The four basic kinds of belief are rooted in perception, memory, introspective consciousness, and reason. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], Intr.p.7) |
| 2735 | Could you have a single belief on its own? [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Could one have just a single belief? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.198) |
| 2736 | We can make certain of what we know, so knowing does not entail certainty [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The possibility of making certain of what we already know suggests that knowing a proposition does not entail its being certain. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.220) |
| 2721 | If you gradually remove a book's sensory properties, what is left at the end? [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If you imagine subtracting a book's sensory properties one by one, what is left of it? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.42) |
| 2722 | Sense-data theory is indirect realism, but phenomenalism is direct irrealism [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Where the sense-datum theory is an indirect realism, phenomenalism is a direct irrealism. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.43) |
| 2728 | The concepts needed for a priori thought may come from experience [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: I may well need experience to acquire the concepts needed for knowledge of the a priori, such as the concept of a colour. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.103) |
| 2727 | Red and green being exclusive colours seems to be rationally graspable but not analytic [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The proposition that nothing is red and green all over at once is not analytic, but it is rationally graspable, so it seems to be an a priori synthetic proposition. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.100) |
| 2716 | To see something as a field, I obviously need the concept of a field [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The propositional belief which portrays what I see in front of me AS a field requires my having a concept of one. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.17) | |
| A reaction: To me this immediately invites the question of what a cow or horse experiences when they look at a familiar field. They know how to leave and enter it, and register its boundaries and qualities. Concepts? |
| 2717 | How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.20) |
| 2719 | Sense data imply representative realism, possibly only representing primary qualities [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: A sense-datum theory might be called a representative realism because it conceives perception as a relation in which sense-data represent perceived external (hence real) objects to us. For Locke they were resemblances only of primary qualities. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.33) |
| 2720 | Sense-data (and the rival 'adverbial' theory) are to explain illusions and hallucinations [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The sense-datum theory is mainly to explain hallucinations and illusions, though there might be other theories, such as the 'adverbial' theory. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.36) |
| 2718 | Perception is first simple, then objectual (with concepts) and then propositional [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Simple perceiving gives rise to objectual perceiving (attaching concepts to the object), which gives rise to propositional perceiving. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.23) |
| 2741 | The principles of justification have to be a priori [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The crucial principles of justification are a priori. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], X p.311) |
| 2729 | Virtually all rationalists assert that we can have knowledge of synthetic a priori truths [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Rationalists virtually always assert or imply that, in addition to knowledge of analytic truths, there is knowledge of synthetic a priori truths. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.105) |
| 7510 | Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: Connectionists do not, of course, believe that the mind is a blank slate, but they do believe in the closest mechanistic equivalent, a general purpose learning device. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This shows the closeness of connectionism to Hume's associationism (Idea 2189), which was just a minimal step away from Locke's mind as 'white paper' (Idea 7507). Pinker is defending 'human nature', but connectionism has a point. |
| 7513 | Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: Are memories stored in protein sequences, in new neurons or synapses, or in changes in the strength of existing synapses? | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a neat summary of current neuroscientific thinking about memory. If you are thinking that memory couldn't possibly be so physical, don't forget the mind-boggling number of events involved in each tiny memory. See Idea 6668. |
| 2725 | To remember something is to know it [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Remembering something is so entails knowing that it is so. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], II p.68) | |
| A reaction: Clearly I can say I "remember" x, but be wrong. Presumably we then say that I didn't really remember, which requires success, like "I know". It is true (as with "know") that as soon as I say that the something is false, I can't claim to remember it. |
| 2724 | I might remember someone I can't recall or image, by recognising them on meeting [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If I can neither recall nor image Jane I can still remember her, for on seeing her I might recognise her, and might remember, and even recall, our last meeting. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], II p.66) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I can hardly claim to remember her if I have no concept of her, and don't recall our last meeting. If seeing her triggers recognition, I would say that I NOW remember her, but I didn't before. Memory is more conscious than Audi claims. |
| 2731 | Justification is either unanchored (infinite or circular), or anchored (in knowledge or non-knowledge) [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: There are four possible kinds of epistemic chain: infinite and unanchored, circular and unanchored, anchored in a belief which is not knowledge, and anchored in a belief which is bedrock knowledge. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.183) | |
| A reaction: About right, though I don't think 'chain' is the right word for what is proposed if justification is to be coherent. The justifications float like lilies in the pond of reason, and a Self (Monet?) seems needed to assess the picture |
| 2739 | Internalism about justification implies that there is a right to believe something [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Internalists about justification tend to conceive of it as a matter of having a right to believe something. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.234) | |
| A reaction: I'm an internalist, but I don't understand this, unless it refers to the social aspect of justification. Can I grant myself internal rights? I can justify my belief to other people. |
| 2732 | Maths may be consistent with observations, but not coherent [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: That 7+5=12 and that carrots are nourishing are mutually consistent, but do not exhibit coherence. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.192) | |
| A reaction: This shows how difficult it would be to define 'coherent'. Is 'carrots are nourishing' coherent with 'fish are nourishing'? Is the battle of Hastings coherent with the battle of Waterloo? |
| 2733 | It is very hard to show how much coherence is needed for justification [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: It is very difficult to specify when an explanatory relation generates enough coherence to create justification. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.193) | |
| A reaction: I take coherence to be the key concept in epistemology, and quite impossible to define. This is why the 'space of reasons' is a useful concept. It is a courtroom, in which each case is different. |
| 2734 | A consistent madman could have a very coherent belief system [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: A schizophrenic who thinks he is Napoleon, if he has a completely consistent story with enough interlocking details, may have a belief system that is superbly coherent. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.194) | |
| A reaction: This is an exaggeration, but the fact is that one isolated lie is totally coherent, so coherence can only emerge when a system is large. Sense experience must be central to coherence. |
| 2738 | Consistent accurate prediction looks like knowledge without justified belief [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If someone consistently prophesied the winners of horse races, it appears that this man knows who will win the races, but surely he does not have justified beliefs as to who will win? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.229) | |
| A reaction: This is where internalists and externalists (notably reliabilists) sharply part company. IF a reliable clairvoyant appeared, we would eventually accept them as a knower. But they DON'T appear, because knowledge needs justification! |
| 2740 | A reliability theory of knowledge seems to involve truth as correspondence [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If one favours a reliability theory of knowledge (which is externalist) the correspondence theory of truth seems the most appropriate. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.243) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right. Coherence implies some sort of internal assessment, whereas correspondence just needs to plugged into the facts. I like coherence justification and correspondence truth. |
| 2737 | 'Reliable' is a very imprecise term, and may even mean 'justified' [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Reliabilism cannot specify how reliable a process must be before it grounds knowledge, and it cannot specify what is reliable in the first place. 'Reliable' may become circular, and may mean 'justified'. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.225) | |
| A reaction: The first time you ever read an instrument, or talk to a stranger, you have no indication of reliability. Circularity looks like a big problem. Knowledge must precede reliability? |
| 2726 | We can be ignorant about ourselves, for example, our desires and motives [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: We can have false beliefs, or some degree of ignorance, about our own mental lives. For example, about our own dispositions, such as not believing that we have a certain ignoble desire. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], III p.83) | |
| A reaction: This idea, that we don't know ourselves, has become a commonplace of recent philosophy, but I am unconvinced. Mostly we know only too well that we harbour a base desire, and we feel a creeping sense of shame. Total ignorance is very rare. |
| 7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: The roundworm only has 959 cells, and 302 neurons in a fixed wiring diagram; it eats, mates, approaches and avoids certain smells, and that's about it. This makes it obvious that human 'free' behaviour comes from our complex biological makeup. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: I find this a persuasive example. Three hundred trillion neurons cannot possibly produce behaviour which is more than broadly predictable, and then it is the environment and culture that make it predictable, not the biology. |
| 7511 | Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: The appeal of neural networks is that they automatically generalize their training to similar new items. If one has been trained to think tigers eat frosted flakes, it will generalise that lions do too, because it knows tigers as sets of features. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This certainly is appealing, because it offers a mechanistic account of abstraction and universals, which everyone agrees are central to proper thinking. |
| 7512 | There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Connectionist networks have difficulty with the kind/individual distinction (ducks/this duck), with compositionality (relations), with quantification (reference of 'all'), with recursion (embedded thoughts), and the categorical reasoning (exceptions). | |
| From: report of Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.5) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [Read Pinker p.80!] These are essentially all the more sophisticated aspects of logical reasoning that Pinker can think of. Personally I would be reluctant to say a priori that connectionism couldn't cope with these things, just because they seem tough. |
| 20064 | Actions are not mere effects of reasons, but are under their control [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: An action for a reason is one that is, in a special way, under the control of reason. It is a response to, not a mere effect of, a reason. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Action, Intention and Reason [1992], p.177), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 6 'Alien' | |
| A reaction: This modifies Davidson's 'reasons are causes'. Audi has a deviant causal chain which causes trouble for his idea, but Stout says he is right to focus on causal 'processes' (an Aristotelian idea) rather than causal 'chains'. |
| 7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: To acknowledge human nature, many think, is to endorse racism, sexism, war, greed, genocide, nihilism, reactionary politics, and neglect of children and the disadvantaged. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Pref) | |
| A reaction: The point is that modern liberal thinking says everything is nurture (which can be changed), not nature (which can't). Virtue theory, of which I am a fan, requires a concept of human nature, as the thing which can attain excellence in its function. |
| 7516 | In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: In 1828 Friedrich Wöhler showed [by synthesising urea in the laboratory] that the stuff of life is not a magical, pulsating gel, but ordinary compounds following the laws of chemistry. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Wöhler synthesised urea in the laboratory. |
| 7515 | All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: The overwhelming evidence is that the process of evolution, far from being intelligent and purposeful, is wasteful and cruel. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This is why opponents should reject evolution totally, rather than compromise with it. Stick to a 6000-year-old world, fossils sent to test our faith, and species created in a flash (with no pain or waste). |
| 7514 | Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker] |
| Full Idea: The originator of 'intelligent design' (the biochemist Michael Behe) takes every phenomenon whose evolutionary history has not yet been figured out, and chalks it up to design by default. | |
| From: Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to summarise the strategy very nicely. The theory essentially exploits the 'wow!' factor. The bigger the wow! the more likely it is that it was created by God. But research has been eroding our wows steadily for four hundred years. |
| 1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
| Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
| From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |