more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
He thought that a grasp made by the senses was true and reliable, …because it left out nothing about the object that could be grasped, and because nature had provided this grasp as a standard of knowledge, and a basis for understanding nature itself.
Gist of Idea
A grasp by the senses is true, because it leaves nothing out, and so nature endorses it
Source
report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.42
Book Ref
'The Stoics Reader', ed/tr. Inwood,B/Gerson,L.P. [Hackett 2008], p.40
A Reaction
Sounds like Williamson's 'knowledge first' claim - that the basic epistemic state is knowledge, which we have when everything is working normally. I like Zeno's idea that a 'grasp' leaves nothing out about the object. Compare nature with Descartes' God.
| 20799 | A grasp by the senses is true, because it leaves nothing out, and so nature endorses it [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero] |
| 7154 | We can't use our own self to criticise our own capacity for knowledge! [Nietzsche] |
| 23888 | Knowledge is beyond question, as an unavoidable component of thinking [Weil] |
| 19512 | Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose] |
| 19528 | Knowledge is prior to believing, just as doing is prior to trying to do [Williamson] |
| 19527 | We don't acquire evidence and then derive some knowledge, because evidence IS knowledge [Williamson] |
| 19529 | Belief explains justification, and knowledge explains belief, so knowledge explains justification [Williamson] |
| 19530 | A neutral state of experience, between error and knowledge, is not basic; the successful state is basic [Williamson] |
| 19531 | Internalism about mind is an obsolete view, and knowledge-first epistemology develops externalism [Williamson] |
| 19536 | Knowledge-first says your total evidence IS your knowledge [Williamson] |
| 19541 | Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew] |