display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 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) |
| 2081 | Maybe primary elements can be named, but not receive a rational account [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the primary elements of which things are composed are not susceptible to rational accounts. Each of them taken by itself can only be named, but nothing further can be said about it. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 201e) | |
| A reaction: This still seems to be more or less the central issue in philosophy - which things should be treated as 'primitive', and which other things are analysed and explained using the primitive tools? |
| 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. |
| 2088 | A rational account of a wagon would mean knowledge of its hundred parts [Plato] |
| Full Idea: In the case of a wagon, we may only have correct belief, but someone who is able to explain what it is by going through its hundred parts has got hold of a rational account. | |
| From: Plato (Theaetetus [c.368 BCE], 207b) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful example. In science, you know smoking correlates with cancer, but you only know it when you know the mechanism, the causal structure. This may be a general truth. |
| 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. |