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9358
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There are several logics, none of which will ever derive falsehoods from truth [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
The fact is that there are several logics, markedly different, each self-consistent in its own terms and such that whoever, using it, avoids false premises, will never reach a false conclusion.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.366)
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A reaction:
As the man who invented modal logic in five different versions, he speaks with some authority. Logicians now debate which version is the best, so how could that be decided? You could avoid false conclusions by never reasoning at all.
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9357
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Excluded middle is just our preference for a simplified dichotomy in experience [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
The law of excluded middle formulates our decision that whatever is not designated by a certain term shall be designated by its negative. It declares our purpose to make a complete dichotomy of experience, ..which is only our penchant for simplicity.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.365)
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A reaction:
I find this view quite appealing. 'Look, it's either F or it isn't!' is a dogmatic attitude which irritates a lot of people, and appears to be dispensible. Intuitionists in mathematics dispense with the principle, and vagueness threatens it.
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17292
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Avoid 'in virtue of' for grounding, since it might imply a reflexive relation such as identity [Audi,P]
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Full Idea:
We should not use 'in virtue of' where it might express a reflexive relation, such as identity. Since grounding is a relation of determination, and closely linked to the concept of explanation, it is irreflexive and asymmetric.
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From:
Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
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A reaction:
E.g. he says someone isn't a bachelor in virtue of being an unmarried man, since a bachelor just is an unmarried man. I can't disagree. 'Determination' looks like the magic word, even if we don't know how it cashes out.
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17302
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Ground is irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, non-monotonic etc. [Audi,P]
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Full Idea:
The logical principles about grounding include irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity, non-monotonicity, and so forth.
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From:
Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.8)
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A reaction:
[It can't ground itself, there is no mutual grounding, grounds of grounds ground, and grounding judgements are not fixed]
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17294
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Grounding is a singular relation between worldly facts [Audi,P]
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Full Idea:
On my view, grounding is a singular relation between facts. ...Facts, on this view, are obtaining states of affairs.
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From:
Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
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A reaction:
He rest this claim on his 'worldly' view of facts, Idea 17293. I seem to be agreeing with him. Note that it is not between types of fact, even if there are such general truths, such as in chemistry.
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17300
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If grounding relates facts, properties must be included, as well as objects [Audi,P]
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Full Idea:
Taking facts to be the relata of grounding has the interesting consequence that it does not relate ordinary particulars, objects, considered apart from their properties.
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From:
Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.4)
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A reaction:
It will depend on what you mean by properties, and it seems to me that something like 'powers' must be invoked, to get the active character that seems to be involved in grounding.
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17301
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Reduction is just identity, so the two things are the same fact, so reduction isn't grounding [Audi,P]
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Full Idea:
I deny that when p grounds q, q thereby reduces to p, and I deny that if q reduces to p, then p grounds q. ...On my view, reduction is nothing other than identity, so p is the same fact as q.
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From:
Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.5)
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A reaction:
Very good. I can't disagree with any of it, and it is crystal clear. Philosophical heaven.
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9365
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We can maintain a priori principles come what may, but we can also change them [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
The a priori contains principles which can be maintained in the face of all experience, representing the initiative of the mind. But they are subject to alteration on pragmatic grounds, if expanding experience shows their intellectual infelicity.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.373)
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A reaction:
[compressed] This simply IS Quine's famous 'web of belief' picture, showing how firmly Quine is in the pragmatist tradition. Lewis treats a priori principles as a pragmatic toolkit, which can be refined to be more effective. Not implausible...
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6493
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We are not conscious of pure liquidity, but of the liquidity of water [Firth]
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Full Idea:
We are not conscious of liquidity, coldness, and solidity, but of the liquidity of water, the coldness of ice, and the solidity of rocks.
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From:
Roderick Firth (Sense Data and the Percept Theory [1949]), quoted by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.7
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A reaction:
A nice point, but it might not be entirely true in a blindfold test, where one might only report properties like 'sticky' or 'warm', without having any clear concept of the substance being experienced. Firth is proposing the 'percept theory'.
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21500
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We rely on memory for empirical beliefs because they mutually support one another [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
When the whole range of empirical beliefs is taken into account, all of them more or less dependent on memorial knowledge, we find that those which are most credible can be assured by their mutual support, or 'congruence'.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 334), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.1
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A reaction:
Lewis may be over-confident about this, and is duly attacked by Olson, but it seems to me roughly correct. How do you assess whether some unusual element in your memory was a dream or a real experience?
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6556
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If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 186), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Intro
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A reaction:
Lewis makes this comment when facing infinite regress problems. It is a very nice slogan for foundationalism, which embodies the slippery slope view. Personally I feel the emotional pull of foundations, but acknowledge the very strong doubts about them.
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21498
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Congruents assertions increase the probability of each individual assertion in the set [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
A set of statements, or a set of supposed facts asserted, will be said to be congruent if and only if they are so related that the antecedent probability of any one of them will be increased if the remainder of the set can be assumed as given premises.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 338), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
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A reaction:
This thesis is vigorously attacked by Erik Olson, who works through the probability calculations. There seems an obvious problem without that. How else do you assess 'congruence', other than by evidence of mutual strengthening?
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17299
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There are plenty of examples of non-causal explanation [Audi,P]
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Full Idea:
There are a number of explanations where it seems clear that causation is not involved at all: normative grounded in non-normative, disposition grounded in categorical, aesthetic grounded in non-aesthetic, semantic in social and psychological.
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From:
Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
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A reaction:
Apart from dispositions, perhaps, these all seem to be experienced phenomena grounded in the physical world. 'Determination' is the preferred term for non-causal grounding.
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5828
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Extension is the class of things, intension is the correct definition of the thing, and intension determines extension [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
"The denotation or extension of a term is the class of all actual or existent things which the term correctly applies to or names; the connotation or intension of a term is delimited by any correct definition of it." ..And intension determines extension.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946]), quoted by Stephen P. Schwartz - Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds §II
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A reaction:
The last part is one of the big ideas in philosophy of language, which was rejected by Putnam and co. If you were to reverse the slogan, though, (to extension determines intension) how would you identify the members of the extension?
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9363
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Science seeks classification which will discover laws, essences, and predictions [Lewis,CI]
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Full Idea:
The scientific search is for such classification as will make it possible to correlate appearance and behaviour, to discover law, to penetrate to the "essential nature" of things in order that behaviour may become predictable.
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From:
C.I. Lewis (A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori [1923], p.368)
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A reaction:
Modern scientific essentialists no longer invoke scare quotes, and I think we should talk of the search for the 'mechanisms' which explain behaviour, but Lewis seems to have been sixty years ahead of his time.
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