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Single Idea 17705

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism ]

Full Idea

Empiricist critiques of rationalism often accuse rationalists of confusing the limits of their imaginations with real insight into what is necessarily true.

Gist of Idea

Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights

Source

Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 03.01)

Book Ref

Mares,Edwin: 'A Priori' [Acumen 2011], p.34


A Reaction

See ideas on 'Conceivable as possible' for more on this. You shouldn't just claim to 'see' that something is true, but be willing to offer some sort of reason, truthmaker or grounding. Without that, you may be right, but you are on weak ground.


The 13 ideas from 'A Priori'

The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares]
Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares]
Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares]
Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares]
Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares]
Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares]
The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares]
Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares]
Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares]
After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares]
Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares]
The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares]
Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares]