Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Vagueness, Truth and Logic' and 'Intro to Contemporary Epistemology'

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3 ideas

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
Verificationism (the 'verification principle') is an earlier form of anti-realism [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: Verificationism (the 'verification principle') is an earlier form of anti-realism.
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 1.note)
     A reaction: If the one true God announced that there is a real world out there, I might take that as a verification of the fact.
Logical positivism implies foundationalism, by dividing weak from strong verifications [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: The foundationalist claim that there are inferential and non-inferential justifications is mirrored by the claim of logical empiricism (the verification principle) that all significant statements are either strongly or weakly verifiable.
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 6.2)
     A reaction: I take it to be characteristic of both to divide the support for something into two types, one of which is basic, and the other built up on the basics. The first step is to decide what is basic.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
If the meanings of sentences depend on other sentences, how did we learn language? [Dancy,J]
     Full Idea: It is clearly possible to learn a language from scratch, because we have all done it, but if holism is true and the meaning of each sentence depends on the meanings of others, how did we do it?
     From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.2)
     A reaction: The question of 'how did it ever get started?' actually seems to block almost every explanation of everything that ever happens. How do I begin to move my hand?