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Single Idea 2081

[filed under theme 13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism ]

Full Idea

Maybe the primary elements of which things are composed are not susceptible to rational accounts. Each of them taken by itself can only be named, but nothing further can be said about it.

Gist of Idea

Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account

Source

Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201e)

Book Ref

Plato: 'Theaetetus', ed/tr. Waterfield,Robin [Penguin 1987], p.116

A Reaction

This still seems to be more or less the central issue in philosophy - which things should be treated as 'primitive', and which other things are analysed and explained using the primitive tools?

The 33 ideas from 'Theaetetus'

2045 Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato]
2047 What evidence can be brought to show whether we are dreaming or not? [Plato]
2050 It is impossible to believe something which is held to be false [Plato]
2052 Eristic discussion is aggressive, but dialectic aims to help one's companions in discussion [Plato]
2053 If you claim that all beliefs are true, that includes beliefs opposed to your own [Plato]
2054 Clearly some people are superior to others when it comes to medicine [Plato]
2056 Philosophers are always switching direction to something more interesting [Plato]
2057 There must always be some force of evil ranged against good [Plato]
2058 God must be the epitome of goodness, and we can only approach a divine state by being as good as possible [Plato]
2059 How can a relativist form opinions about what will happen in the future? [Plato]
2060 There seem to be two sorts of change: alteration and motion [Plato]
2067 Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato]
2068 With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato]
2069 Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato]
2076 How can a belief exist if its object doesn't exist? [Plato]
2078 You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato]
10216 We master arithmetic by knowing all the numbers in our soul [Plato]
2080 Things are only knowable if a rational account (logos) is possible [Plato]
2081 Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato]
2082 A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato]
15854 A primary element has only a name, and no logos, but complexes have an account, by weaving the names [Plato]
15843 The whole can't be the parts, because it would be all of the parts, which is the whole [Plato]
15844 A sum is that from which nothing is lacking, which is a whole [Plato]
2083 Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato]
2084 If a word has no parts and has a single identity, it turns out to be the same kind of thing as a letter [Plato]
2085 Parts and wholes are either equally knowable or equally unknowable [Plato]
2086 Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato]
2087 A rational account might be seeing an image of one's belief, like a reflection in a mirror [Plato]
2088 A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato]
16126 Expertise is knowledge of the whole by means of the parts [Plato]
2089 An inadequate rational account would still not justify knowledge [Plato]
2090 A rational account involves giving an image, or analysis, or giving a differentiating mark [Plato]
2091 Without distinguishing marks, how do I know what my beliefs are about? [Plato]