Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Thought and Talk', 'Letter to Mersenne' and 'Knowledge:Readings in Cont.Epist'

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3 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
Perception, introspection, testimony, memory, reason, and inference can give us knowledge [Bernecker/Dretske]
     Full Idea: The basic sources of knowledge and justification are perception, introspection, testimony, memory, reason, and inference.
     From: Bernecker / Dretske (Knowledge:Readings in Cont.Epist [2000], Pt.V Int)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
Having a belief involves the possibility of being mistaken [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Someone cannot have a belief unless he understands the possibility of being mistaken.
     From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.170)
     A reaction: If you pretend to throw a ball for a dog, but don't release it, the dog experiences being mistaken very dramatically.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / e. Belief holism
The concept of belief can only derive from relationship to a speech community [Davidson]
     Full Idea: We have the idea of belief from its role in the interpretation of language; as a private attitude it is not intelligible except in relation to public language. So a creature must be a member of a speech community to have the concept of belief.
     From: Donald Davidson (Thought and Talk [1975], p.22)
     A reaction: This shows how Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4152) hovers behind Davidson's philosophy. The idea is quite persuasive. A solitary creature just follows its mental states. The question of whether it believes them is a meta-thought.