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Ideas for 'Topics', 'Seven Types of Atheism' and 'A Priori Knowledge Revisited'

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3 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 6. Classical Logic
Classical logic is our preconditions for assessing empirical evidence [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: In my terminology, classical logic (or at least, its most central tenets) consists of propositional preconditions for our assessing empirical evidence in the way we do.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: I like an even stronger version of this - that classical logic arises out of our experiences of things, and so we are just assessing empirical evidence in terms of other (generalised) empirical evidence. Logic results from induction. Very unfashionable.
I believe classical logic because I was taught it and use it, but it could be undermined [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I believe the laws of classical logic, in part because I was taught them, and in part because I think I see how those laws are used in assessing evidence. But my belief could easily be undermined by experience.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: Quine has one genuine follower! The trouble is his first sentence would fit witch-doctoring just as well. Kitcher went to Cambridge; I hope he doesn't just believe things because he was taught them, or because he 'sees how they are used'!
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 2. Aporiai
Puzzles arise when reasoning seems equal on both sides [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The equality of opposite reasonings is the cause of aporia; for it is when we reason on both [sides of a question] and it appears to us that everything can come about either way, that we are in a state of aporia about which of the two ways to take up.
     From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 145b17), quoted by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 3.1
     A reaction: Other philosophers give up on the subject in this situation, but I love Aristotle because he takes this to be the place where philosophy begins.