Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Metaphysics', 'In a Critical Condition' and 'Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism'

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3 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
According to empiricists abstraction is the fundamental mental process [Fodor]
     Full Idea: According to empiricists, the fundamental mental process is not theory construction but abstraction.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.12)
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism
All men long to understand, as shown by their delight in the senses [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: By nature, all men long to understand [eidenai]; an indication is their delight in the senses.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 0980a21)
     A reaction: See Idea 8331 and Idea 12038 to understand what this means. I take it to support the thesis that the aim of philosophy is explanations (at a higher level of generality than the sciences).
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
Rationalists say there is more to a concept than the experience that prompts it [Fodor]
     Full Idea: That there is more in the content of a concept than there is in the experiences that prompt us to form it is the burden of the traditional rationalist critique of empiricism (as worked out by Leibniz and Kant).
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch.12)