display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
3696 | A priori justification requires understanding but no experience [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: A proposition will count as being justified a priori as long as no appeal to experience is needed for the proposition to be justified - once it is understood. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.2) | |
A reaction: Could you 'understand' that a square cannot be circular without appeal to experience? I'm losing faith in the pure a priori. |
3703 | You can't explain away a priori justification as analyticity, and you can't totally give it up [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Moderate empiricists try unsuccessfully to explain a priori justification by means of analyticity, and radical empiricist attempts to dispense with a priori justification end in nearly total scepticism. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) | |
A reaction: My working theory is neither of the above. Because we can abstract from the physical world, we can directly see/experience generalised (and even necessary) truths about it. |
3706 | A priori justification can vary in degree [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: A priori justification can vary in degree. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.5) | |
A reaction: This idea, which I trace back at least to Russell, seems to me one of breakthrough ideas in modern thought. It means that a priori knowledge can be reconnected with a posteriori knowledge. |
3699 | The induction problem blocks any attempted proof of physical statements [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The attempt to prove physical statements on the basis of sensory evidence is defeated by the problem of induction. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.6) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a logician's use of the word 'prove', which would be a pretty forlorn hope. Insofar as experience proves anything, fully sensing a chair proves its existence. |
6873 | Coherent justification seems to require retrieving all our beliefs simultaneously [Goldman] |
Full Idea: The problem of Concurrent Retrieval is a problem for internalism, notably coherentism, because an agent could ascertain coherence of her entire corpus only by concurrently retrieving all of her stored beliefs. | |
From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §3) | |
A reaction: Sounds neat, but not very convincing. Goldman is relying on scepticism about short-term memory, but all belief and knowledge will collapse if we go down that road. We couldn't do simple arithmetic if Goldman's point were right. |