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Single Idea 2082

[filed under theme 2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence ]

Full Idea

Just as primary elements are woven together, so their names may be woven together to produce a spoken account, because an account is essentially a weaving together of names.

Gist of Idea

A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names

Source

Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 202b)

Book Ref

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

A Reaction

If justification requires 'logos', and logos is a 'weaving together of names', then Plato might be taken as endorsing the coherence account of justification. Or do the two 'weavings' correspond?

The 24 ideas with the same theme [principles of mutual support between propositions]:

2082 A rational account is essentially a weaving together of things with names [Plato]
1672 Maybe everything could be demonstrated, if demonstration can be reciprocal or circular [Aristotle]
17638 If one proposition is deduced from another, they are more certain together than alone [Russell]
2764 Full coherence might involve consistency and mutual entailment of all propositions [Blanshard, by Dancy,J]
17070 Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
17072 We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
12596 Reasoning aims at increasing explanatory coherence [Harman]
12599 Reason conservatively: stick to your beliefs, and prefer reasoning that preserves most of them [Harman]
6954 A coherent conceptual scheme contains best explanations of most of your beliefs [Harman]
9784 A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system [Cartwright,R]
4262 If the only aim was consistent beliefs then new evidence and experiments would be irrelevant [Goldman]
12770 We may end up with a huge theory of carefully constructed falsehoods [Fraassen]
8877 We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa]
8833 Why should we prefer coherent beliefs? [Klein,P]
8797 The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa]
3700 Coherence can't be validated by appeal to coherence [Bonjour]
8893 For any given area, there seem to be a huge number of possible coherent systems of beliefs [Bonjour]
10237 Coherence is a primitive, intuitive notion, not reduced to something formal [Shapiro]
17596 Coherence problems have positive and negative restraints; solutions maximise constraint satisfaction [Thagard]
17597 Coherence is explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative [Thagard]
17598 Explanatory coherence needs symmetry,explanation,analogy,data priority, contradiction,competition,acceptance [Thagard]
12801 Coherentists seek relations among beliefs that are simple, conservative and explanatory [Foley]
8616 How can multiple statements, none of which is tenable, conjoin to yield a tenable conclusion? [Elgin]
8617 Statements that are consistent, cotenable and supportive are roughly true [Elgin]