Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Social Contract (tr Cress)', 'Apriority as an Evaluative Notion' and 'On the Natural Faculties'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Both nature and reason require that everything has a cause [Rousseau]
     Full Idea: Under the law of reason nothing takes place without a cause, any more than under the law of nature.
     From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Social Contract (tr Cress) [1762], II.04)
     A reaction: Is this the influence of Leibniz? Note that the principle is identified in two different areas, so in nature we may say 'everything has a cause', and in rationality we may say 'there is a reason for everything'. But are these the same?
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 4. Circularity
Maybe reasonableness requires circular justifications - that is one coherentist view [Field,H]
     Full Idea: It is not out of the question to hold that without circular justifications there is no reasonableness at all. That is the view of a certain kind of coherence theorist.
     From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 2)
     A reaction: This nicely captures a gut feeling I have had for a long time. Being now thoroughly converted to coherentism, I am drawn to the idea - like a moth to a flame. But how do we distinguish cuddly circularity from its cruel and vicious cousin?