display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
3074 | People's reasons for belief are rarely conscious [Harman] |
Full Idea: The reasons for which people believe things are rarely conscious. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Probably correct. The interesting bit is when they bring the beliefs into consciousness and scrutinise them rationally. Philosophers routinely overthrow their natural beliefs in this way. |
3097 | We don't distinguish between accepting, and accepting as evidence [Harman] |
Full Idea: There is no distinction between what we accept as evidence and whatever else we accept. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 10.4) |
6369 | In negative coherence theories, beliefs are prima facie justified, and don't need initial reasons [Harman, by Pollock/Cruz] |
Full Idea: According to Harman's negative coherence theory it is always permissible to adopt a new belief - any new belief; because beliefs are prima facie justified you do not need a reason for adopting a new belief. | |
From: report of Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973]) by J Pollock / J Cruz - Contemporary theories of Knowledge (2nd) §3.4.1 | |
A reaction: This must be placed alongside the fact that we don't usually choose our beliefs, but simply find ourselves believing because of the causal impact of evidence. This gives an unstated rational justification for any belief - something caused it. |
3096 | Coherence avoids scepticism, because it doesn't rely on unprovable foundations [Harman] |
Full Idea: Scepticism is undermined once it is seen that the relevant kind of justification is not a matter of derivation from basic principles but is rather a matter of showing that a view fits in well with other things we believe. | |
From: Gilbert Harman (Thought [1973], 10.4) | |
A reaction: I would (now) call myself a 'coherentist' about justification, and I agree with this. Coherent justification could not possibly deliver certainty, so it must be combined with fallibilism. |
22163 | The scandal of philosophy is expecting to prove reality when the prover's Being is vague [Heidegger] |
Full Idea: The 'scandal of philosophy' is not that this proof [of external things] has yet to be given, but that such proofs are expected and attempted again and again. ...The kind of Being of the entity which does the proving has not been made definite enough. | |
From: Martin Heidegger (Being and Time [1927], I.6.43a) | |
A reaction: The 'scandal' was a remark of Kant's. Presumably Heidegger's exploration of Dasein aims to establish the Being of the prover sufficiently to solve this problem (via phenomenology). |