Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Fixation of Belief', 'Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism' and 'Philosophy of Nature (Encylopedia II)'

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3 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce]
     Full Idea: To satisfy our doubts it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency - by something upon which our thinking has no effect.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.18)
     A reaction: This may be the single most important idea in pragmatism and in the philosophy of science. See Fodor on experiments (Idea 2455). Put the question to nature. The essential aim is to be passive in our beliefs - just let reality form them.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 6. Contextual Justification / a. Contextualism
Contextualism needs a semantics for knowledge sentences that are partly indexical [Schiffer,S]
     Full Idea: Contextualist semantics must capture the 'indexical' nature of knowledge claims, the fact that different utterances of a knowledge sentence with no apparent indexical terms can express different propositions.
     From: Stephen Schiffer (Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism [1996], p.325), quoted by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.5
     A reaction: Schiffer tries to show that this is too difficult, and DeRose defends contextualism against the charge.
The indexical aspect of contextual knowledge might be hidden, or it might be in what 'know' means [Schiffer,S]
     Full Idea: One might have a 'hidden-indexical' theory of knowledge sentences: they contain constituents that are not the semantic values of any terms; ...or 'to know' itself might be indexical, as in 'I know[easy] I have hands' or 'I know[tough] I have hands'.
     From: Stephen Schiffer (Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism [1996], p.326-7), quoted by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.5
     A reaction: [very compressed] Given the choice, I would have thought it was in 'know', since to say 'either you know p or you don't' sounds silly to me.