display all the ideas for this combination of texts
9 ideas
| 20122 | We have no organ for knowledge or truth; we only 'know' what is useful to the human herd [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We simply lack any organ for knowledge, for 'truth'; we 'know' [das Erkennen] (or believe or imagine) just as much as may be useful in the interests of the human herd, the species; and this 'utility' is ultimately also a mere belief. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §354) | |
| A reaction: [Section §354 is fascinating!] An odd idea, that we can only have truth is we have an 'organ' for it. It seems plausible that the whole brain is a truth machine. This seems like pure pragmatism, with all its faults. Falsehoods can be useful. |
| 8882 | Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: There is a difference between having just an indexical concept which one can apply to a perceptual characteristic (just saying 'this is thus'), and having a thicker perceptual concept of that characteristic. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: Both of these, of course, would precede any categorial concepts that enabled one to identify the characteristic or the object. This is a ladder foundationalists must climb if they are to reach the cellar of basic beliefs. |
| 8883 | Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Are foundationally justified beliefs perhaps those that result from attending to our experience and to features of it or in it? | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: A promising suggestion. I do think our ideas acquire a different epistmological status once we have given them our full attention, though is that merely full consciousness, or full thoughtful evaluation? The latter I take to be what matters. Cf Idea 2414. |
| 8885 | Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Some intrinsic features of our thoughts are attributable to them directly, or foundationally, while others are attributable only based on counting or inference. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: In practice the brain combines the two at a speed which makes the distinction impossible. I'll show you ten dot-patterns: you pick out the sixer. The foundationalist problem is that only those drained of meaning could be foundational. |
| 8876 | Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Much of our propositional knowledge is not easily formulable, as when a witness looking at a police lineup may know what the culprit's face looks like. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This is actually a very helpful defence of foundationalism, because it shows that we will accept perceptual experiences as knowledge when they are not expressed as explicit propositions. Davidson (Idea 8801), for example, must deal with this difficulty. |
| 8879 | Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: One's beliefs can be comprehensively coherent without amounting to knowledge. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
| A reaction: Beliefs that are fully foundational or reliably sourced may also fail to be knowledge. I take it that any epistemological theory must be fallibilist (Idea 6898). Rational coherentism will clearly be sensitive to error. |
| 4423 | We assume causes, geometry, motion, bodies etc to live, but they haven't been proved [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We have fixed up a world for ourselves in which we can live, with bodies, lines, planes, causes, motion and form; without these articles of faith nobody would endure life. But that does not mean they have been proved. Life is no argument. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §121) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to disagree. A lot of recent thought suggests that they are Hume's 'natural beliefs', like truth and induction, which simply can't be proved. 'Unprovable' does not mean 'incorrect', however. |
| 6579 | Nietzsche's perspectivism says our worldview depends on our personality [Nietzsche, by Fogelin] |
| Full Idea: Nietzsche recommends an extreme version of perspectivism in holding that a person's view of the world is a function of that person's life-affirming (Heraclitean) or life-denying (Parmenidean) personality. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: Fogelin recommends Nehamas on this topic. I am not convinced Nietzsche takes such an individual view as is implied here. See Idea 4420, for example. This view is in tune with Charles Taylor's view that our values shape our understanding of our selves. |
| 24083 | It would be absurd to say we are only permitted our own single perspective [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: I think today we are at least far removed from the ridiculous immodesty of decreeing from our corner that one is permitted to have perspectives only from this corner. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay (Joyful) Science [1882], §374) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to speculate about the possibility of infinite perspectives, most of them unknowable to us. But Nietzsche was not a simple relativism. The obvious concept needed to accompany a many-perspectives view is consensus. |