Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Stilpo, Kurt Vonnegut and Stephen R. Grimm

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5 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
Unlike knowledge, you can achieve understanding through luck [Grimm]
     Full Idea: It may be that understanding is compatible with luck, in a way that knowledge is not.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
     A reaction: [He cites Kvanvig and Prichard] If so, then we cannot say that knowledge is a lesser type of understanding. If you ask a trusted person how a mechanism works, and they have a wild guess that is luckily right, you would then understand it.
'Grasping' a structure seems to be modal, because we must anticipate its behaviour [Grimm]
     Full Idea: 'Graspng' a structure would seem to bring into play something like a modal sense or ability, not just to register how things are, but also to anticipate how certain elements of the system would behave.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 2)
     A reaction: In the case of the chronology of some historical events, talking of 'grasping' or 'understanding' seems wrong because the facts are static and invariant. That seems to support the present idea. But you might 'understand' a pattern if you can reproduce it.
You may have 'weak' understanding, if by luck you can answer a set of 'why questions' [Grimm]
     Full Idea: There may be a 'weak' sense of understanding, where all you need to do is to be able to answer 'why questions' successfully, where one might have come by this ability in a lucky way.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
     A reaction: We can see this point (in Idea 19691), but the idea that one could come by true complex understanding of something by purely lucky means is a bit absurd. Surely you would get one or two why questions wrong? 100%, just by luck?
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
Out of more than a hundred planets, Earth is the only one with the idea of free will [Vonnegut]
     Full Idea: I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by ‘free will'. I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.
     From: Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse Five [1969], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Spoken by the ambassador from the planet Tralfamadore. Possibly the greatest put down of a philosophical idea since Diogenes responded to Plato's definition of a man. I think free will is a non-idea. It is non-sensical, and doesn't exist.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Stilpo asked a man whether Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and when he said yes, said,"But this statue of Athena by Phidias is the child of Phidias, so it is not a god."
     From: report of Stilpo (fragments/reports [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.10.5