display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
14875 | Belief matters more than knowledge, and only begins when knowledge ceases [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The human being starts to believe when he ceases to know. …Knowledge is not as important for the welfare of human beings as is belief. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 21 [13]) | |
A reaction: The first idea is now associated with Williamson (and Hossack). The second is something like the pragmatic view of belief espoused by Ramsey. |
19553 | Commitment to 'I have a hand' only makes sense in a context where it has been doubted [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: If I utter 'I know I have a hand' then I can only be reckoned a cooperative conversant by my interlocutors on the assumption that there was a real question as to whether I have a hand. | |
From: John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 2) | |
A reaction: This seems to point to the contextualist approach to global scepticism, which concerns whether we are setting the bar high or low for 'knowledge'. |
14866 | It always remains possible that the world just is the way it appears [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Against Kant we can still object, even if we accept all his propositions, that it is still possible that the world is as it appears to us. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 19 [125]) | |
A reaction: This little thought at least seems to be enough to block the slide from phenomenalism into total idealism. The idea that direct realism can never be ruled out, even if it is false, is very striking. |