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Ideas for 'Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn)', 'Person and Object' and 'Natural Kinds and Biological Realism'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy
2945 Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2)
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
15801 Many philosophers aim to understand metaphysics by studying ourselves [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: Leibniz, Reid, Brentano and others have held that, by considering certain obvious facts about ourselves, we can arrive at an understanding of the general principles of metaphysics. The present book is intended to confirm that view.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], Intro 1)
     A reaction: I sympathise, but don't really agree. I see metaphysics as a process of filtering ourselves out of the picture, leaving an account of how things actually are.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
2946 You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7)
     A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 6. Logical Analysis
15802 I use variables to show that each item remains the same entity throughout [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: My use of variables is not merely pedantic; it indicates that the various items on our list pertain to one and the same entity throughout.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Person and Object [1976], Intro 2)
     A reaction: I am one of those poor souls who finds modern analytic philosophy challenging simply because I think in terms of old fashioned words, instead of thinking like mathematicians and logicians. This is a nice defence of their approach.