8 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. |
604 | Knowledge is mind and knowing 'cohabiting' [Lycophron, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Lycophron has it that knowledge is the 'cohabitation' (rather than participation or synthesis) of knowing and the soul. | |
From: report of Lycophron (fragments/reports [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1045b | |
A reaction: This sounds like a rather passive and inert relationship. Presumably knowing something implies the possibility of acting on it. |
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'. |
7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
7607 | Nagarjuna and others pronounced the world of experience to be an illusion [Nagarjuna, by Armstrong,K] |
Full Idea: Many later Buddhists (after Nagarjuna, c.120 CE) developed a belief that everything we experience is an illusion: in the West we would call them idealists. | |
From: report of Nagarjuna (teachings [c.120]) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This is just one step beyond Plato (who at least hung onto the immediate world as an inferior reality), and is presumably intended to motivate meditators to break out of the misery of existence into a higher realm. Personally I am against it. |