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Single Idea 8882

[filed under theme 13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / c. Empirical foundations ]

Full Idea

There is a difference between having just an indexical concept which one can apply to a perceptual characteristic (just saying 'this is thus'), and having a thicker perceptual concept of that characteristic.

Gist of Idea

Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts

Source

Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.2)

Book Ref

Bonjour,L/Sosa,E: 'Epistemic Justification' [Blackwells 2003], p.124


A Reaction

Both of these, of course, would precede any categorial concepts that enabled one to identify the characteristic or the object. This is a ladder foundationalists must climb if they are to reach the cellar of basic beliefs.


The 20 ideas from Ernest Sosa

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