Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mind and Its Place in Nature', 'Posterior Analytics' and 'The Philosophy of Philosophy'

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3 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
You cannot understand anything through perception [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: You cannot understand anything through perception. Demonstrations are universal, and universals cannot be perceived.
     From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 87b28)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Some knowledge is lost if you lose a sense, and there is no way the knowledge can be replaced [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The loss of any one of the senses entails the loss of a corresponding portion of knowledge, and since we learn either by induction or by demonstration, this knowledge cannot be acquired.
     From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 81a37)
     A reaction: This suggests Jackson's 'knowledge argument', that raw experience contains some genuine knowledge, for which there is no mechanistic substitute. Not that I accept….
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund]
     Full Idea: Broad, one of the most important modern defenders of the representative theory of perception, explicitly rejects the inferential component of the theory.
     From: report of C.D. Broad (Mind and Its Place in Nature [1925]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.1
     A reaction: Since the supposed inferences happen much too quickly to be conscious, it is hard to see how we could distinguish an inference from an interpretation mechanism. Personally I interpret things long before the question of truth arises.