Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works (fragments)', 'works' and 'The Conscious Mind'

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3 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
Perception an open hand, a fist is 'grasping', and holding that fist is knowledge [Zeno of Citium, by Long]
     Full Idea: Zeno said perceptions starts like an open hand; then the assent by our governing-principle is partly closing the hand; then full 'grasping' is like making a fist; and finally knowledge is grasping the fist with the other hand.
     From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.3.1
     A reaction: [In Cicero, Acad 2.145] It sounds as if full knowledge requires meta-cognition - knowing that you know.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
We attribute beliefs to people in order to explain their behaviour [Chalmers]
     Full Idea: Belief is something of an explanatory construct: we attribute beliefs to others largely in order to explain their behaviour.
     From: David J.Chalmers (The Conscious Mind [1996], 1.1.3)
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First
A grasp by the senses is true, because it leaves nothing out, and so nature endorses it [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: He thought that a grasp made by the senses was true and reliable, …because it left out nothing about the object that could be grasped, and because nature had provided this grasp as a standard of knowledge, and a basis for understanding nature itself.
     From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.42
     A reaction: Sounds like Williamson's 'knowledge first' claim - that the basic epistemic state is knowledge, which we have when everything is working normally. I like Zeno's idea that a 'grasp' leaves nothing out about the object. Compare nature with Descartes' God.