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Ideas for 'The Elm and the Expert', 'Abstract Entities' and 'fragments/reports'

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 5. Controlling Beliefs
Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor]
     Full Idea: Premeditated cognitive management is possible if knowing the contents of one's thoughts would tell you what would make them true and what would cause you to have them.
     From: Jerry A. Fodor (The Elm and the Expert [1993], §4)
     A reaction: I love the idea of 'cognitive management'. Since belief is fairly involuntary, I subject myself to the newspapers, books, TV and conversation which will create the style of beliefs to which I aspire. Why?
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 1. Relativism
Donkeys prefer chaff to gold [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Donkeys prefer chaff to gold.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B009), quoted by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1176a07
Sea water is life-giving for fish, but not for people [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Sea-water is the purest and the most polluted: for fish it is drinkable and life-giving; for men, not drinkable and destructive.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B061), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.10.5
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 3. Subjectivism
Health, feeding and rest are only made good by disease, hunger and weariness [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Disease makes health pleasant and good, hunger makes satisfaction good, weariness makes rest good.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B111), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.1.178