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| 9329 | Justification is coherence with a background system; if irrefutable, it is knowledge |
| Full Idea: Justification is coherence with a background system which, when irrefutable, converts to knowledge. | |||
| From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006]) | |||
| A reaction: A problem (as the theory stands here) would be whether you have to be aware that the coherence is irrefutable, which would seem to require a pretty powerful intellect. If one needn't be aware of the irrefutability, how does it help my justification? |
| 9330 | Generalization seems to be more fundamental to minds than spotting similarities |
| Full Idea: There is a level of generalization we share with other animals in the responses to objects that suggest that generalization is a more fundamental operation of the mind than the observation of similarities. | |||
| From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006]) | |||
| A reaction: He derives this from Reid (1785) - Lehrer's hero - who argued against Hume that we couldn't spot similarities if we hadn't already generalized to produce the 'respect' of the similarity. Interesting. I think Reid must be right. |
| 9328 | All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them |
| Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them. | |||
| From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006]) | |||
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'. |