display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 17596 | Coherence problems have positive and negative restraints; solutions maximise constraint satisfaction [Thagard] |
| Full Idea: A coherence problem is a set of elements connected by positive and negative restraints, and a solution consists of partitioning the elements into two sets (accepted and rejected) in a way that maximises satisfaction of the constraints. | |
| From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.42) | |
| A reaction: I'm enthusiastic about this, as it begins to clarify the central activity of epistemology, which is the quest for best explanations. |
| 17597 | Coherence is explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative [Thagard] |
| Full Idea: I propose that there are six main kinds of coherence: explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative. ...Epistemic coherence is a combination of the first five kinds, and ethics adds the sixth. | |
| From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.43) | |
| A reaction: Wonderful. Someone is getting to grips with the concept of coherence, instead of just whingeing about how vague it is. |
| 17598 | Explanatory coherence needs symmetry,explanation,analogy,data priority, contradiction,competition,acceptance [Thagard] |
| Full Idea: Informally, a theory of explanatory coherence has the principles of symmetry, explanation, analogy, data priority, contradiction, competition and acceptance. | |
| From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.44) | |
| A reaction: [Thagard give a concise summary of his theory here] Again Thagard makes a wonderful contribution in an area where most thinkers are pessimistic about making any progress. His principles are very plausible. |
| 8099 | The truths of reason instruct, but they do not illuminate [Joubert] |
| Full Idea: There are truths that instruct, perhaps, but they do not illuminate. In this class are all the truths of reasoning. | |
| From: Joseph Joubert (Notebooks [1800], 1800) | |
| A reaction: A rather romantic view, which strikes me as false. An inspiring truth can suddenly collapse when you see why it must be false. Equally a line of reasoning can lead to a truth which need becomes an illumination. |