Ideas from 'Intro to 'Philosophical Essays'' by Richard Cartwright [1987], by Theme Structure

[found in 'Philosophical Essays' by Cartwright,Richard [MIT 1987,0-262-53092-9]].

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1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
Philosophers working like teams of scientists is absurd, yet isolation is hard
                        Full Idea: The notion that philosophy can be done cooperatively, in the manner of scientists or engineers engaged in a research project, seems to me absurd. And yet few philosophers can survive in isolation.
                        From: Richard Cartwright (Intro to 'Philosophical Essays' [1987], xxi)
                        A reaction: This why Nietzsche said that philosophers were 'rare plants'.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
A false proposition isn't truer because it is part of a coherent system
                        Full Idea: You do not improve the truth value of a false proposition by calling attention to a coherent system of propositions of which it is one.
                        From: Richard Cartwright (Intro to 'Philosophical Essays' [1987], xi)
                        A reaction: We need to disentangle the truth-value from the justification here. If it is false, then we can safely assume that is false, but we are struggling to decide whether it is false, and we want all the evidence we can get. Falsehood tends towards incoherence.