display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 19517 | Believing without a reason may just be love of your own fantasies [Locke] |
| Full Idea: He that believes, without having any reason for believing, may be in love with his own fancies. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.17.24) | |
| A reaction: This comes close to Clifford's Principle, though he demands 'evidence', rather than a reason. Of course, the supposed 'reason' may be just as much of a fantasy as the belief! |
| 583 | The starting point of a proof is not a proof [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Who defines the healthy man, or who is awake or asleep? This is a pursuit of foundations, but this is seeking an account where there isn't one. The starting point of a proof is not a proof. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a10) | |
| A reaction: a comment on Descartes |
| 15977 | Facts beyond immediate experience are assessed by agreement with known truths and observations [Locke] |
| Full Idea: What comes not within the scrutiny of the human senses ...can appear more or less probable only as they more or less agree to truths that are established in the our minds, and as they hold proportion to other parts of our knowledge and observation. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.16.12) | |
| A reaction: This remark strikes me as an excellent attempt to get at what we mean by coherence in justification. It is also, note, a good account of what we would count as a best explanation. |
| 2555 | For Locke knowledge relates to objects, not to propositions [Locke, by Rorty] |
| Full Idea: Locke didn't think of knowledge as true justified belief. …He considered "knowledge of" as prior to "knowledge that", and knowledge as a relation between persons and objects rather than persons and propositions. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by Richard Rorty - Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems pretty close to Russell's 'knowledge by acquaintance'. You'd be a in a stronger position to build on this sort of thing if you were a direct realist about perception. |
| 10326 | Other men's opinions don't add to our knowledge - even when they are true [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The floating of other Mens Opinions in our brains makes us not one jot the more knowing, though they happen to be true. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 1.04.23) | |
| A reaction: Kusch calls this thought of Locke's 'notorious'. Locke is certainly expressing extreme individualism in epistemology, and Kusch's views are the exact opposite. I'm more with Kusch. |
| 581 | Dreams aren't a serious problem. No one starts walking round Athens next morning, having dreamt that they were there! [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Is it really an issue whether things are true that appear to those asleep or to those awake? No one in Libya who dreamt he was in Athens, would set out for the Odeon next morning! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1010b09) |
| 6488 | Locke has no patience with scepticism [Locke, by Robinson,H] |
| Full Idea: Locke has no patience with scepticism. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.4 | |
| A reaction: Neither did Hume, and Aristotle laughs at extreme scepticism, and it never really bothers Plato. It could be argued that Descartes just regards it as a strategy for getting at foundations, rather than being something that kept him awake at night. |
| 585 | If relativism is individual, how can something look sweet and not taste it, or look different to our two eyes? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If things are true relative to an individual, how can something seem honey to the sight but not to the taste, or, given that we have two eyes, things may not seem the same to the sight of both of them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a24) |
| 584 | If truth is relative it is relational, and concerns appearances relative to a situation [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The claim that all appearances are true makes all things relational. Hence the claim is shifted to all appearances being true relative to a subject, time, sense and context. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1011a20) | |
| A reaction: applies to Epicurus |
| 576 | If the majority had diseased taste, and only a few were healthy, relativists would have to prefer the former [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When two men taste the same thing one will often find it sweet and the other bitter. Suppose all men were sick, except one or two who were healthy. It would then be the latter two who would be considered sick, and the others not! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1009b05) |