Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hesiod, Tom Milsted and James Pryor

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8 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / b. Basic beliefs

8845	An experience's having propositional content doesn't make it a belief [Pryor]
	Full Idea: To say that experiences have propositional content is not to say that experiences are beliefs.
	From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §4)
	A reaction: This is important for opponents of foundationalism, because they will not allow a raw experience to act as a justification on its own. Even if concepts, or even propositions, are offered by experience, the crucial evaluation must preceded knowledge.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / e. Pro-foundations

8842	The best argument for immediate justification is not the Regress Argument, but considering examples [Pryor]
	Full Idea: The best argument for immediate justification is not the Regress Argument, but from considering examples, such as I have a headache, I am raising my arm, I am imagining my grandmother, or seeing how dominoes could fill a chessboard.
	From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §3)
	A reaction: Most of his examples depend on the fact that they cannot be challenged by anyone else, because they are within his own mind. The dominoes require complex thought. The first two could be erroneous if he was dreaming.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification

8843	Impure coherentists accept that perceptions can justify, unlike pure coherentists [Pryor]
	Full Idea: Pure coherentists claim that a belief can only be justified by its relations to other beliefs; impure coherentists are willing to give some non-beliefs, such as perceptual experiences, a justifying role.
	From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §4)
	A reaction: I think I would vote for the pure version. The distinction that is needed, I think, is between justification and evidence. You have to surmise causal links and explanations before you can see an experience as evidence, and then justification.

8844	Coherentism rests on the claim that justifications must be beliefs, with propositional content [Pryor]
	Full Idea: The Master Argument for coherentism is the claim that a justifier requires asserted propositional content, and that only beliefs represent propositions assertively.
	From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §4)
	A reaction: I think this claim (which Pryor attacks) is correct. A key point is that almost any experience can be delusional, and in need of critical evaluation. We would even only accept an experience as being necessarily veridical after critical evaluation.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism

8846	Reasons for beliefs can be cited to others, unlike a raw headache experience [Pryor]
	Full Idea: If you have reasons for your belief, they should be considerations you could in principle cite, or give, to someone who doubted or challenged the belief. You can't give some else a non-propositional state like a headache.
	From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §6)
	A reaction: On the whole I agree, but if someone asked you to justify your claim that there is a beautiful sunset over the harbour, you could just say 'Look!'. Headaches are too private. The person must still see that the sunset is red, and not the window.

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 5. Controlling Beliefs

8847	Beliefs are not chosen, but you can seek ways to influence your belief [Pryor]
	Full Idea: Ordinarily we make no intentional choices about what to believe, but one can choose to believe something, and then seek ways to get oneself to believe it.
	From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §7)
	A reaction: Deliberately reading the articles of a philosopher that you seem to agree with would be an example. Presumably the belief that this is a good belief and should be given support is not itself voluntarily chosen. Ultimately we are helpless. See Idea 1854.

14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / a. Grue problem

7296	'Grue' is not a colour [Milsted]
	Full Idea: 'Grue' is not a colour.
	From: Tom Milsted (talk [2006]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: This simple observation strikes me as rather crucial in assessing Goodman's paradox. Blue is a colour, but grue is some sort of behaviour. Blue is a secondary quality, but grue seems to be a primary quality.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

20239	Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche]
	Full Idea: Hesiod reckons envy among the effects of the good and benevolent Eris, and there was nothing offensive in according envy to the gods. ...Likewise the Greeks were different from us in their evaluation of hope: one felt it to be blind and malicious.
	From: report of Hesiod (works [c.700 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Dawn (Daybreak) 038
	A reaction: Presumably this would be understandable envy, and unreasonable hope. Ridiculous envy can't possibly be good, and modest and sensible hope can't possibly be bad. I suspect he wants to exaggerate the relativism.