22 ideas
| 20923 | We take part in objective truth, rather than observe it from a distance [Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Hermeneutic thinkers insist that we need to redefine objective truth as something we take part in rather than something we merely observe from a distance. | |
| From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 1 'Truth') | |
| A reaction: Don't get it. If I objectively judge that there are some cows in a field, I judge that they will probably still be there if I turn away and forget them, so any passionate involvement I have with cows is irrelevant to the objective facts. Am I wrong? |
| 20926 | Hermeneutic knowledge is not objective, but embraces interpretations [Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: In the hermeneutic ideal of knowledge, not distance but involvement, not impersonal observation but personal interaction, not thinking against prejudice or tradition but accessing knowledge through them, characterizes our perception of the world. | |
| From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 3 'Beyond') | |
| A reaction: To make this stick it will have to challenge scientific knowledge which results from mathematical summaries of measurements done by instruments. Is a stop watch an interpretation? |
| 19504 | My modus ponens might be your modus tollens [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: One philosopher's modus ponens is another philosopher's modus tollens. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 3.§2) | |
| A reaction: [Anyone know the originator of this nice thought?] You say A is true, and A proves B, so B is true. I reply that if A proves something as daft as B, then so much the worse for A. Ain't it the truth? |
| 10304 | Very few things in set theory remain valid in intuitionist mathematics [Bernays] |
| Full Idea: Very few things in set theory remain valid in intuitionist mathematics. | |
| From: Paul Bernays (On Platonism in Mathematics [1934]) |
| 10303 | Restricted Platonism is just an ideal projection of a domain of thought [Bernays] |
| Full Idea: A restricted Platonism does not claim to be more than, so to speak, an ideal projection of a domain of thought. | |
| From: Paul Bernays (On Platonism in Mathematics [1934], p.261) | |
| A reaction: I have always found Platonism to be congenial when it talks of 'ideals', and ridiculous when it talks of a special form of 'existence'. Ideals only 'exist' because we idealise things. I may declare myself, after all, to be a Restricted Platonist. |
| 10306 | Mathematical abstraction just goes in a different direction from logic [Bernays] |
| Full Idea: Mathematical abstraction does not have a lesser degree than logical abstraction, but rather another direction. | |
| From: Paul Bernays (On Platonism in Mathematics [1934], p.268) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the logicists seem to think that if you increasingly abstract from mathematics, you end up with pure logic. |
| 19503 | An improbable lottery win can occur in a nearby possible world [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: Low probability events such as lottery wins can occur in nearby possible worlds. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 2.n2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to ruin any chance of mapping probabilities and counterfactuals in the neat model of nested possible worlds (like an onion). [Lewis must have thought of this, surely? - postcards, please] |
| 19505 | Moore begs the question, or just offers another view, or uses 'know' wrongly [Pritchard,D, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The three main objections to Moore's common-sense refutation of scepticism is that it either begs the question, or it just offers a rival view instead of a refutation, or it uses 'know' in a conversationally inappropriate way. | |
| From: report of Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 3.§2) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [I deserve applause for summarising two pages of Pritchard's wordy stuff so neatly] |
| 20924 | In phenomenology, all perception is 'seeing as' [Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: That human perception is always a 'seeing as' was the cardinal insight of what Husserl called 'phenomenology'. | |
| From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 2 'Husserl's') | |
| A reaction: I presume that 'cardinal insight' means there is no possibility of Husserl being wrong about this. What's happening before you figure out what it is you are looking at? |
| 19499 | We can have evidence for seeing a zebra, but no evidence for what is entailed by that [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: The closure principle forces us to regard Zula as knowing that what she is looking at is not a cleverly disguised mule, and yet she doesn't appear to have any supporting evidence for this knowledge. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 2.§3) | |
| A reaction: [Zula observes a zebra in the zoo] Entailment is a different type of justification from perception. If we add fallibilism to the mix, then fallibility can increase as we pursue a string of entailments. But proper logic, of course, should not be fallible. |
| 19500 | Favouring: an entailment will give better support for the first belief than reason to deny the second [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: The Favouring Principle says that if S knows two things, and that the first entails the second, then S has better evidence in support of her belief in the first than she has for denying the second. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 2.§3) | |
| A reaction: [his version is full of Greek letters, but who wants that stuff?] Pritchard concludes that if you believe in the closure principle then you should deny the favouring principle. |
| 19502 | Maybe knowledge just needs relevant discriminations among contrasting cases [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: According to the 'contrastivist' proposal knowledge is to be understood as essentially involving discrimination, such that knowing a proposition boils down to having the relevant discriminatory capacities. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 2.§6) | |
| A reaction: Pritchard says this isn't enough, and we must also to be aware of supporting favouring evidence. I would focus on the concept of coherence, even for simple perceptual knowledge. If I see a hawk in England, that's fine. What if I 'see' a vulture? |
| 19498 | Epistemic internalism usually says justification must be accessible by reflection [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: Typically, internal epistemic conditions are characterised in terms of a reflective access requirement. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 1.§6) | |
| A reaction: If your justification is straightforwardly visual, it is unclear what the difference would be between seeing the thing and having reflective access to the seeing. |
| 19506 | Externalism is better than internalism in dealing with radical scepticism [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: Standard epistemic internalism faces an uphill struggle when it comes to dealing with radical scepticism, which points in favour of epistemic externalist neo-Mooreanism. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 3.§3) | |
| A reaction: I incline towards internalism. I deal with scepticism by being a fallibilist, and adding 'but you never know' to every knowledge claim, and then getting on with life. |
| 19496 | Disjunctivism says perceptual justification must be both factual and known by the agent [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: Slogan for disjunctivism: perceptual knowledge is paradigmatically constituted by a true belief whose epistemic support is both factive (i.e. it entails the truth of the propositions believed) and reflectively accessible to the agent. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not a fan of externalism, but it could be that the factive bit achieves the knowledge, and then being able to use and answer for that knowledge may just be a bonus, and not an essential ingredient. |
| 19497 | Metaphysical disjunctivism says normal perceptions and hallucinations are different experiences [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical disjunctivists hold that veridical perceptual experiences are not essentially the same as the experiences involved in corresponding cases involving illusion and (especially) hallucination. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 1.§4) | |
| A reaction: Metaphysical disjunctivism concerns what the experiences are; epistemological justification concerns the criteria of justification. I think. I wish Pritchard would spell things out more clearly. Indeed, I wish all philosophers would. |
| 19495 | Epistemic externalism struggles to capture the idea of epistemic responsibility [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: A fundamental difficulty for epistemic externalist positions is that it is hard on this view to capture any adequate notion of epistemic responsibility. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He never explains the 'responsibility', but I presume that would be like an expert witness in court, vouching for their knowledge. |
| 19501 | We assess error against background knowledge, but that is just what radical scepticism challenges [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: When faced with an error-possibility we can appeal to background knowledge, as long as the error-possibility does not call into question this background knowledge. The same is not true when we focus on the radical sceptical hypothesis. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 2.§5) | |
| A reaction: [reworded] Doubting everything simultaneously just looks like a mad project. If you doubt linguistic meaning, you can't even express your doubts. |
| 19507 | Radical scepticism is merely raised, and is not a response to worrying evidence [Pritchard,D] |
| Full Idea: Crucially, radical sceptical error-possibilities are never epistemically motivated, but are instead merely raised. | |
| From: Duncan Pritchard (Epistemological Disjunctivism [2012], 3.§5) | |
| A reaction: In 'The Matrix' someone sees a glitch in the software (a cat crossing a passageway), and that would have to be taken seriously. Otherwise it is a nice strategy to ask why the sceptic is raising this bizzare possibility, without evidence. |
| 20927 | The hermeneutic circle is between the reader's self-understanding, and the world of the text [Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: The 'hermeneutic circle' of understanding is not between the author and the reader, but between my understanding myself in my own world, and the world projected by the text, with its possibilities for life. | |
| From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 4 'How texts') | |
| A reaction: I'm not much of a fan of hermeneutics, but this idea seems quite important. Readings of Dickens in1860, 1930 and 2020 are very different events. For example, which parts catch the reader's interest, or jar with their sensibilities? |
| 20933 | Natural law theorists fear that without morality, law could be based on efficiency [Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Natural law theorists fear that by denying the intrinsic connection between law and morality, positivists could encourage the validation of law based on efficiency alone. | |
| From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 6 'Natural') | |
| A reaction: The law's the law. The issue can only be whether one can ever be justified in breaking a law, and that isn't a legal question. I am sympathetic to the positiviists. |
| 20929 | Traditionally, God dictated the Torah to Moses, unlike the later biblical writings [Zimmermann,J] |
| Full Idea: Jewish traditionalists hold that the first five books of the Hebrew Bible (the 'Torah') were dictated word for word by God to Moses, while the remaining sacred writings were more generally inspired. | |
| From: Jens Zimmermann (Hermeneutics: a very short introduction [2015], 5 'Inspiration') | |
| A reaction: This gives the Torah a similar status to the Quran, and presumably also to the actual words which are ascribed to Jesus in the four gospels. |