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Single Idea 19565

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities ]

Full Idea

What non-experiential link to reality could support insights into its necessary character?

Gist of Idea

How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality?

Source

Michael Devitt (There is No A Priori (and reply) [2005], 4)

Book Ref

'Contemporary Debates in Epistemology (2nd ed)', ed/tr. Steup/Turri/Sosa [Wiley Blackwell 2014], p.193

A Reaction

The key to it, I think, is your theory of mind. If you are a substance dualist, then connecting to such deep things looks fine, but if you are a reductive physicalist then it looks absurdly hopeful.

The 15 ideas from Michael Devitt

17371 Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt]
17372 The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt]
17373 Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt]
8501 Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt]
8502 Realism doesn't explain 'a is F' any further by saying it is 'a has F-ness' [Devitt]
8503 The particular/universal distinction is unhelpful clutter; we should accept 'a is F' as basic [Devitt]
17369 We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt]
17370 Things that gradually change, like species, can still have essences [Devitt]
17367 Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG]
17368 Essentialism concerns the nature of a group, not its category [Devitt]
9354 Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt]
9353 We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt]
9356 The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt]
19564 Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt]
19565 How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality? [Devitt]