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Single Idea 8794

[filed under theme 12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 1. Common Sense ]

Full Idea

Radical foundationalism suffers from two weaknesses: there are not so many perfectly obvious truths as Descartes thought; and if we restrict ourselves to what it truly obvious, very little supposed common sense knowledge can be proved.

Gist of Idea

There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them

Source

Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §3)

Book Ref

'Epistemology - An Anthology', ed/tr. Sosa,E. /Kim,J. [Blackwell 2000], p.136

A Reaction

It is striking how few examples can ever be found of self-evident a priori truths. However, if there are self-evident truths about direct experience (pace Descartes), that would give us more than enough.

The 20 ideas from Ernest Sosa

8876 Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa]
8877 We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa]
8878 It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa]
8879 Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa]
8880 In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa]
8881 Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa]
8882 Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa]
8883 Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa]
8884 The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa]
8885 Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa]
8798 Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa]
8799 If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa]
8794 There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa]
8795 Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa]
8796 A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa]
8797 The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa]
8442 What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence? [Sosa]
8443 Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa]
8444 Where is the necessary causation in the three people being tall making everybody tall? [Sosa]
8445 The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator [Sosa]