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Full Idea
Almost nothing that one knows of history or geography or science has adequate sensory support, present or even recalled.
Gist of Idea
Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support
Source
Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7)
Book Ref
Bonjour,L/Sosa,E: 'Epistemic Justification' [Blackwells 2003], p.117
A Reaction
This seems a bit glib, and may be false. The main issue to which this refers is, of course, induction, which (almost by definition) is a supposedly empirical process which goes beyond the empirical evidence.
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] |
8879 | Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa] |
8878 | It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [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] |