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Ideas for 'Thinking About Mathematics', 'Every Thing Must Go' and 'The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude'

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4 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Rationalism tries to apply mathematical methodology to all of knowledge [Shapiro]
     Full Idea: Rationalism is a long-standing school that can be characterized as an attempt to extend the perceived methodology of mathematics to all of knowledge.
     From: Stewart Shapiro (Thinking About Mathematics [2000], 1.1)
     A reaction: Sometimes called 'Descartes's Dream', or the 'Enlightenment Project', the dream of proving everything. Within maths, Hilbert's Programme aimed for the same certainty. Idea 22 is the motto for the opposition to this approach.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
Rats find some obvious associations easier to learn than less obvious ones [Ladyman/Ross]
     Full Idea: Contrary to early behaviourist dogma, associations are not all equally learnable. Rats learn to associate eating with nausea, and a flash with a shock, much more easily than either complementary pairing.
     From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 5.2)
     A reaction: That looks like an argue for some sort of innate knowledge, but experiments to disentangle eating from nausea must be rather hard to set up.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
The doctrine of empiricism does not itself seem to be empirically justified [Ladyman/Ross]
     Full Idea: If to be an empiricist is to believe that 'experience is the sole source of information about the world', the problem is that this does not itself seem to be justifiable by experience.
     From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 2.3.1)
     A reaction: [The quotation is from Van Fraassen 1985 p.253] This is the classic 'turning the tables' move in argument, invented by the Greeks. It is hard to offer anything other than intuition in the first move of any metaphysical theory.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
There is no reason to think our intuitions are good for science or metaphysics [Ladyman/Ross]
     Full Idea: There is no reason to imagine that our habitual intuitions and inferential responses are well designed for science or for metaphysics.
     From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 1.1)