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Ideas for 'works (fragments)', 'The Foundations of Mathematics' and 'Pragmatism and Objective Truth'

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3 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / c. Defeasibility
If a grasped perception cannot be shaken by argument, it is 'knowledge' [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: What had been grasped by sense-perception, he called this itself a 'sense-perception', and if it was grasped in such a way that it could not be shaken by argument he called it 'knowledge'. And between knowledge and ignorance he placed the 'grasp'.
     From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica I.41
     A reaction: This seems to say that a grasped perception is knowledge if there is no defeater.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / d. Rational foundations
A presentation is true if we judge that no false presentation could appear like it [Zeno of Citium, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: I possess a standard enabling me to judge presentations to be true when they have a character of a sort that false ones could not have.
     From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.18.58
     A reaction: [This is a spokesman in Cicero for the early Stoic view] No sceptic will accept this, but it is pretty much how I operate. If you see something weird, like a leopard wandering wild in Hampshire, you believe it once you have eliminated possible deceptions.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / a. Reliable knowledge
A belief is knowledge if it is true, certain and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey]
     Full Idea: I have always said that a belief was knowledge if it was 1) true, ii) certain, iii) obtained by a reliable process.
     From: Frank P. Ramsey (The Foundations of Mathematics [1925], p.258), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 66 'Rel'
     A reaction: Not sure why it has to be 'certain' as well as 'true'. It seems that 'true' is objective, and 'certain' subjective. I think I know lots of things of which I am not fully certain. Reliabilism long preceded Alvin Goldman.