display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 24138 | Strongly believed a priori is not certain; it may just be a feature of our existence [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: What we believe the most, everything a priori, is not for that reason more certain, just because it is so strongly believed. Rather, it is perhaps a consequence of the condition for the existence of our species. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[307]) | |
| A reaction: This is in defiance of Leibniz and Kant. His proposed explanation is not very convincing. Russell agreed with Nietzsche. |
| 15244 | We experience qualities as of objects, not on their own [Harré/Madden] |
| Full Idea: It seems clear that we are never presented with a quality except of some object. | |
| From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced that that 'seems clear'. The idea of sense-data is that while it seems to be of an object, reason suggests that the experience of the quality must precede the object assembled thereby. How do you arbitrate? |
| 24130 | An affirmative belief is present in every basic sense impression [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Belief is already present in every sense impression going back to the very moment it begins: a kind of Yes-saying first intellectual activity! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[168]) | |
| A reaction: He seems right that there is an intrinsic commitment to believing sense impressions, even in animals. Presumably more of a default setting than an intellectual choice. |
| 15248 | Inference in perception is unconvincingly defended as non-conscious and almost instantaneous [Harré/Madden] |
| Full Idea: To the objection that one is never aware of inferences in sensation, the unconvincing reply comes that such inferences are automatic, telescoped, non-discursive and unconscious. | |
| From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II) | |
| A reaction: I think the 'unconvincing' reply is a bit more convincing in the light of modern research on the brain, which presents everything it does in a far less conscious light than the traditional view. Even reason seems barely conscious. |
| 15269 | Humean impressions are too instantaneous and simple to have structure or relations [Harré/Madden] |
| Full Idea: The Humean event, the impression, basic to his epistemology, is, as we have seen, instantaneous in nature, punctiform and elemenentary, and from this characterisation follows its atomicity, its lack of internal connections with anything else. | |
| From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV) | |
| A reaction: This simple point about Humean associationism is the key to grasping the whole hideous worldview that has gripped twentieth century philosophy. How many impressions make up an apple? And why do they sum to make something? |