Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Reiss,J/Spreger,J, Paul Boghossian and John Haldane

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23 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
22353 One view says objectivity is making a successful claim which captures the facts [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: One conception of objectivity is that the facts are 'out there', and it is the task of scientists to discover, analyze and sytematize them. 'Objective' is a success word: if a claim is objective, it successfully captures some feature of the world.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2)
     A reaction: This seems to describe truth, rather than objectivity. You can establish accurate facts by subjective means. You can be fairly objective but miss the facts. Objectivity is a mode of thought, not a link to reality.
22356 An absolute scientific picture of reality must not involve sense experience, which is perspectival [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: Sense experience is necessarily perspectival, so to the extent to which scientific theories are to track the absolute conception [of reality], they must describe a world different from sense experience.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
     A reaction: This is a beautifully simple and interesting point. Even when you are looking at a tree, to grasp its full reality you probably need to close your eyes (which is bad news for artists).
22359 Topic and application involve values, but can evidence and theory choice avoid them? [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: There may be values involved in the choice of a research problem, the gathering of evidence, the acceptance of a theory, and the application of results. ...The first and fourth do involve values, but what of the second and third?
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
     A reaction: [compressed] My own view is that the danger of hidden distorting values has to be recognised, but it is then possible, by honest self-criticism, to reduce them to near zero. Sociological enquiry is different, of course.
22360 The Value-Free Ideal in science avoids contextual values, but embraces epistemic values [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: According to the Value-Free Ideal, scientific objectivity is characterised by absence of contextual values and by exclusive commitment to epistemic values in scientific reasoning.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.1)
     A reaction: This seems appealing, because it concedes that we cannot be value-free, without suggesting that we are unavoidably swamped by values. The obvious question is whether the two types of value can be sharply distinguished.
22362 Value-free science needs impartial evaluation, theories asserting facts, and right motivation [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: Three components of value-free science are Impartiality (appraising theories only by epistemic scientific standards), Neutrality (the theories make no value statements), and Autonomy (the theory is motivated only by science).
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 3.3)
     A reaction: [They are summarising Hugh Lacey, 1999, 2002] I'm not sure why the third criterion matters, if the first two are met. If a tobacco company commissions research on cigarettes, that doesn't necessarily make the findings false or prejudiced.
22364 Thermometers depend on the substance used, and none of them are perfect [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: Thermometers assume the length of the fluid or gas is a function of temperature, and different substances yield different results. It was decided that different thermometers using the same substance should match, and air was the best, but not perfect.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.1)
     A reaction: [summarising Hasok Chang's research] This is a salutary warning that instruments do not necessarily solve the problem of objectivity, though thermometers do seem to be impersonal, and offer relative accuracy (i.e. ranking temperatures). Cf breathalysers.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition
9376 A sentence may simultaneously define a term, and also assert a fact [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: It doesn't follow from the fact that a given sentence is being used to implicitly define one of its ingredient terms, that it is not a factual statement. 'This stick is a meter long at t' may define an ingredient terms and express something factual.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: This looks like a rather good point, but it is tied in with a difficulty about definition, which is deciding which sentences are using a term, and which ones are defining it. If I say 'this stick in Paris is a meter long', I'm not defining it.
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 3. Minimalist Truth
6345 Minimalism is incoherent, as it implies that truth both is and is not a property [Boghossian, by Horwich]
     Full Idea: Boghossian argues that minimalism is incoherent because it says truth both is and is not a property; the essence of minimalism is that, unlike traditional theories, truth is not a property, yet properties are needed to explain the theory.
     From: report of Paul Boghossian (The Status of Content [1990]) by Paul Horwich - Truth (2nd edn) Post.8
     A reaction: I doubt whether this is really going to work as a demolition, because it seems to me that no philosophers are even remotely clear about what a property is. If properties are defined causally, it is not quite clear how truth would ever be a property.
5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 2. Formal Truth
9375 Conventionalism agrees with realists that logic has truth values, but not over the source [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: Conventualism is a factualist view: it presupposes that sentences of logic have truth values. It differs from a realist view in its conception of the source of those truth values, not on their existence. I call the denial of truths Non-Factualism.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: It barely seems to count as truth is we say 'p is true because we say so'. It is a truth about an agreement, not a truth about logic. Driving on the left isn't a truth about which side of the road is best.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities
9369 'Snow is white or it isn't' is just true, not made true by stipulation [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: Isn't it overwhelmingly obvious that 'Either snow is white or it isn't' was true before anyone stipulated a meaning for it, and that it would have been true even if no one had thought about it, or chosen it to be expressed by one of our sentences?
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I)
     A reaction: Boghossian would have to believe in propositions (unexpressed truths) to hold this - which he does. I take the notion of truth to only have relevance when there are minds around. Otherwise the so-called 'truths' are just the facts.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
9367 The a priori is explained as analytic to avoid a dubious faculty of intuition [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: The central impetus behind the analytic explanation of the a priori is a desire to explain the possibility of a priori knowledge without having to postulate a special evidence-gathering faculty of intuition.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I)
     A reaction: I don't see at all why one has to postulate a 'faculty' in order to talk about intuition. I take an intuition to be an apprehension of a probable truth, combined with an inability to articulate how the conclusion was arrived at.
9373 That logic is a priori because it is analytic resulted from explaining the meaning of logical constants [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: The analytic theory of the apriority of logic arose indirectly, as a by-product of the attempt to explain in what a grasp of the meaning of the logical constants consists.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: Preumably he is referring to Wittgenstein's anguish over the meaning of the word 'not' in his World War I notebooks. He first defined the constants by truth tables, then asserted that they were purely conventional - so logic is conventional.
9380 We can't hold a sentence true without evidence if we can't agree which sentence is definitive of it [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: If there is no sentence I must hold true if it is to mean what it does, then there is no basis on which to argue that I am entitled to hold it true without evidence.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: He is exploring Quine's view. Truth by convention depends on agreeing which part of the usage of a term constitutes its defining sentence(s), and that may be rather tricky. Boghossian says this slides into the 'dreaded indeterminacy of meaning'.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 11. Denying the A Priori
9384 We may have strong a priori beliefs which we pragmatically drop from our best theory [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: It is consistent with a belief's being a priori in the strong sense that we should have pragmatic reasons for dropping it from our best overall theory.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], n 6)
     A reaction: Does 'dropping it' from the theory mean just ignoring it, or actually denying it? C.I. Lewis is the ancestor of this view. Could it be our 'best' theory, while conflicting with beliefs that were strongly a priori? Pragmatism can embrace falsehoods.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
9374 If we learn geometry by intuition, how could this faculty have misled us for so long? [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: If we learn geometrical truths by intuition, how could this faculty have misled us for so long?
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: This refers to the development of non-Euclidean geometries, though the main misleading concerns parallels, which involves infinity. Boghossian cites 'distance' as a concept the Euclideans had misunderstood. Why shouldn't intuitions be wrong?
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment
22357 The 'experimenter's regress' says success needs reliability, which is only tested by success [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: The 'experimenter's regress' says that to know whether a result is correct, one needs to know whether the apparatus is reliable. But one doesn't know whether the apparatus is reliable unless one knows that it produces correct results ...and so on.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 2.3)
     A reaction: [H. Collins (1985), a sociologist] I take this to be a case of the triumphant discovery of a vicious circle which destroys all knowledge turning out to be a benign circle. We build up a coherent relationship between reliable results and good apparatus.
14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem
22365 The Bayesian approach is explicitly subjective about probabilities [Reiss/Sprenger]
     Full Idea: The Bayesian approach is outspokenly subjective: probability is used for quantifying a scientist's subjective degree of belief in a particular hypothesis. ...It just provides sound rules for learning from experience.
     From: Reiss,J/Spreger,J (Scientific Objectivity [2014], 4.2)
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / c. Meaning by Role
9378 If meaning depends on conceptual role, what properties are needed to do the job? [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: Conceptual Role Semantics must explain what properties an inference or sentence involving a logical constant must have, if that inference or sentence is to be constitutive of its meaning.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: This is my perennial request that if something is to be defined by its function (or role), we must try to explain what properties it has that make its function possible, and those properties will be the more basic explanation.
9377 'Conceptual role semantics' says terms have meaning from sentences and/or inferences [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: 'Conceptual role semantics' says the logical constants mean what they do by virtue of figuring in certain inferences and/or sentences involving them and not others, ..so some inferences and sentences are constitutive of an expression's meaning.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §III)
     A reaction: If the meaning of the terms derives from the sentences in which they figure, that seems to be meaning-as-use. The view that it depends on the inferences seems very different, and is a more interesting but more risky claim.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 8. Synonymy
9372 Could expressions have meaning, without two expressions possibly meaning the same? [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: Could there be a fact of the matter about what each expression means, but no fact of the matter about whether they mean the same?
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §II)
     A reaction: He is discussing Quine's attack on synonymy, and his scepticism about meaning. Boghossian and I believe in propositions, so we have no trouble with two statements having the same meaning. Denial of propositions breeds trouble.
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths
17721 There are no truths in virtue of meaning, but there is knowability in virtue of understanding [Boghossian, by Jenkins]
     Full Idea: Boghossian distinguishes metaphysical analyticity (truth purely in virtue of meaning, debunked by Quine, he says) from epistemic analyticity (knowability purely in virtue of understanding - a notion in good standing).
     From: report of Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996]) by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.4
     A reaction: [compressed] This fits with Jenkins's claim that we have a priori knowledge just through understanding and relating our concepts. She, however, rejects that idea that a priori is analytic.
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 3. Analytic and Synthetic
9368 Epistemological analyticity: grasp of meaning is justification; metaphysical: truth depends on meaning [Boghossian]
     Full Idea: The epistemological notion of analyticity: a statement is 'true by virtue of meaning' provided that grasp of its meaning alone suffices for justified belief in its truth; the metaphysical reading is that it owes its truth to its meaning, not to facts.
     From: Paul Boghossian (Analyticity Reconsidered [1996], §I)
     A reaction: Kripke thinks it is neither, but is a purely semantic notion. How could grasp of meaning alone be a good justification if it wasn't meaning which was the sole cause of the statement's truth? I'm not convinced by his distinction.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 6. Liberalism / g. Liberalism critique
22251 Liberalism may fail because it neglects the shared nature of what we pursue and protect [Haldane]
     Full Idea: I am interested in the claim that liberalism fails inasmuch as it neglects, and cannot accommodate, the fact that some or all of the goods we pursue, and which a system of rights is concerned to protect, are goods possessed in common.
     From: John Haldane (The Individual, the State, and the Common Good [1996], III)
     A reaction: It depends how individualistic we take liberalism to be. Extreme individualism (Nozick) strikes me as crazy. If 'we' erect a statue to some dubious politicians, it might be presented as a common good, but actually be despised by many.