Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'The Possibility of Metaphysics' and 'Theaetetus'

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6 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perception is infallible, suggesting that it is knowledge [Plato]
     Full Idea: Perception is always of something that is, and it is infallible, which suggests that it is knowledge.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 152c)
Our senses could have been separate, but they converge on one mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: It would be peculiar if each of us were like a Trojan horse, with a whole bunch of senses sitting inside us, rather than that all these perceptions converge onto a single identity (mind, or whatever one ought to call it).
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 184d)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / a. Qualities in perception
Properties or qualities are essentially adjectival, not objectual [Lowe]
     Full Idea: I consider properties or qualities to be essentially adjectival rather than objectual in nature (and the same applies to relations, though they are adjectival to more than one object).
     From: E.J. Lowe (The Possibility of Metaphysics [1998], 7.1)
     A reaction: Personally I am inclined to say that properties are either real causal powers (functions of objects?), such as being sharp, or else they are subjective ways of distinguishing things (e.g. colours). Or fictions. 'Adjectival' is too vague.
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
With what physical faculty do we perceive pairs of opposed abstract qualities? [Plato]
     Full Idea: With what physical faculty do we perceive being and not-being, similarity and dissimilarity, identity and difference, oneness and many, odd and even and other maths, ….fineness and goodness?
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 185d)
Thought must grasp being itself before truth becomes possible [Plato]
     Full Idea: If you can't apprehend being you can't apprehend truth, and so a thing could not be known. Therefore knowledge is not located in immediate experience but in thinking about it, since the latter makes it possible to grasp being and truth.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 186c)
You might mistake eleven for twelve in your senses, but not in your mind [Plato]
     Full Idea: Sight or touch might make someone take eleven for twelve, but he could never form this mistaken belief about the contents of his mind.
     From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 195e)