22 ideas
| 21959 | Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things [Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things. | |
| From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the first sentence of Moore's book, and a touchstone idea all the way through. It stands up well, because it says enough without committing to too much. I have to agree with it. It implies explanation as the key. I like generality too. |
| 1635 | Mathematics reduces to set theory (which is a bit vague and unobvious), but not to logic proper [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics reduces only to set theory, and not to logic proper… but set theory cannot claim the same firmness and obviousness as logic. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968], p.69-70) |
| 21958 | Appearances are nothing beyond representations, which is transcendental ideality [Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Appearances in general are nothing outside our representations, which is just what we mean by transcendental ideality. | |
| From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], B535/A507) |
| 7627 | You can't reduce epistemology to psychology, because that presupposes epistemology [Maund on Quine] |
| Full Idea: There is something seriously misguided about Quine's project of reducing epistemology to psychology, since psychology, like any of the natural sciences, presupposes an epistemology. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: I wonder if epistemology presupposes psychology? Belief, for example, is a category of folk psychology, which could be challenged. There is a quiet battle going on between philosophy and science. |
| 8871 | We should abandon a search for justification or foundations, and focus on how knowledge is acquired [Quine, by Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Quine is suggesting that philosophy should abandon the attempt to provide a foundation for knowledge, or otherwise justify it, and should instead give an account of how knowledge is acquired. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968]) by Donald Davidson - Epistemology Externalized p.193 | |
| A reaction: If you are going to explain how 'knowledge' is acquired, you'd better know what knowledge is. My suspicion is that Quine would be quite happy (in the pragmatist tradition) to just focus on belief, and forget about knowledge entirely. |
| 8826 | If we abandon justification and normativity in epistemology, we must also abandon knowledge [Kim on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine asks us to set aside the entire framework of justification-centered epistemology, ..and repudiate normativity. ..But then knowledge itself drops out of epistemology, for our concept of knowledge is inseparably tied to that of justification. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968]) by Jaegwon Kim - What is 'naturalized epistemology'? p.305 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this would not bother Quine, who wants to hand so-called 'epistemology' over to the psychologists. A psychological account of belief seems plausible. Presumably false beliefs could only be pragmatically characterised. |
| 8827 | Without normativity, naturalized epistemology isn't even about beliefs [Kim on Quine] |
| Full Idea: If normativity is wholly excluded from naturalized epistemology it cannot even be thought of as being about beliefs. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968]) by Jaegwon Kim - What is 'naturalized epistemology'? p.306 | |
| A reaction: And if it doesn't refer to beliefs, it certainly doesn't refer to knowledge. One might try to subsume normativity under evolutionary pragmatic 'drives', or something. Quine's project would then become wildly speculative, and hence boring. |
| 8899 | Epistemology is a part of psychology, studying how our theories relate to our evidence [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Epistemology falls into place as a chapter of psychology, and hence of natural science. ..We study meagre input and torrential output, to see how evidence relates to theory, and in what ways one's theory of nature transcends any available evidence. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968], p.83) | |
| A reaction: It depends what you are interested in. If you just want to know what makes humans tick, then Quine is your man, but if you want to know things in general, and want to know how to get it right, then the normative side of epistemology is unavoidable. |
| 23805 | Some explanations offer to explain a mystery by a greater mystery [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: An 'obscurum per obscurius' explanation is explaining something mysterious by something even more mysterious, | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 6) | |
| A reaction: Schulte's example is trying to explain mental content in terms of phenomenal experience. That is, roughly, explaining content by qualia, when the latter is the 'hard problem'. |
| 23792 | Phenomenal and representational character may have links, or even be united [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Some theorists maintain that all states with representational content or intentionality must have phenomenal character …and we can also ask whether all states with phenomenal character also have representional content. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: He mentions that beliefs could involve inner speech. And pains and moods may be phenomenal but lack content. He also asks which determines which. |
| 23795 | Naturalistic accounts of content cannot rely on primitive mental or normative notions [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: A 'naturalistic' explanation of content excludes primitive mental or normative notions, but allows causation, counterfactual dependence, probabilistic dependence or structural similarity. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4) | |
| A reaction: Apart from causation, what is permissible to naturalists (like me) all sounds rather superficial (and thus not very explanatory). I'm sure we can do better than this. How about using non-primitive mental notions? |
| 23804 | Maybe we can explain mental content in terms of phenomenal properties [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: The phenomenal intentionality approach says that the content properties of mental states can be explained in terms of the phenomenal properties of mental states. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 6) | |
| A reaction: [Searle and Loar are cited] Tends to be 'non-naturalistic'. We might decide that content derives from the phenomenal, but still without saying anything interesting about content. Mathematical content? Universally generalised content? |
| 23806 | Naturalist accounts of representation must match the views of cognitive science [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Recent naturalisation of content now also has to offer a matching account of representational explanations in cognitive science. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 08.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Cummins, Neander and Shea] This is in addition to the 'status' and 'content' questions of Idea 23796. This seems to be an interesting shift to philosophers working backwards from the theories of empirical science. Few are qualified for this job! |
| 23793 | On the whole, referential content is seen as broad, and sense content as narrow [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: We can say that non-Fregean content [reference] is (virtually) always contrued as broad, while Fregean content [sense] is usually contrued as narrow. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I can't make sense of mental content actually being outside the mind, so I see all content as narrow - but that doesn't mean that externals are irrelevant to it. If I think that is an oak, and it's an elm, the content is oak. |
| 23796 | Naturalists must explain both representation, and what is represented [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Naturalistic accounts of content ask 1) what makes a state qualify as a representational state?, and 2) what makes a representational state have one specific content rather than another? | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4) | |
| A reaction: [As often in this collection, the author uses algebraic letters, but I prefer plain English] I would say that the first question looks more amenable to an answer than the second. Do we know the neuronal difference between seeing red and blue? |
| 23802 | Conceptual role semantics says content is determined by cognitive role [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual role semantics says the content of a representation is determined by the cognitive role it plays with a system. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Obvious problem: if 'swordfish' is the password, its role is quite different from its content. I've never thought that the role of something tells you anything about what it is. Hearts pump blood, but how do they fulfil that role? |
| 23797 | Cause won't explain content, because one cause can produce several contents [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: A simple causal theory of content has the 'content indeterminacy' problem - that the presence of a cow causes 'a cow is present', but also 'an animal is present' and 'a biological organism is present'. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: That only rules out the 'simple' version. We just need to add that the cause (cow experience) is shaped by current knowledge and interests. Someone buying cows and someone terrified of them thereby produce different concepts. |
| 23799 | Teleosemantics explains content in terms of successful and unsuccessful functioning [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: The core idea of teleosemantics is that we need to explain how content can be accurate or inaccurate, true or false, realised or unrealised …which must appeal to the distinction between proper functioning and malfunctioning. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: My immediate reaction to this is that you don't learn about content by assessing its success. Surely (as with eyesight) you first need to understand what it does, and only then judge its success. …Though success and failure are implicit in function. |
| 23800 | Teleosemantic explanations say content is the causal result of naturally selected functions [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Teleosemantic theories usually give a causal account of mental functions …where some trait has a particular function if it was selected for that function by a process of natural selection. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This is an idea I like - that something has a specific function if without that function it wouldn't have come into existence (eyes, for example). But presumably the function of a mind is to collect content - which does nothing to explain content! |
| 23798 | Information theories say content is information, such as smoke making fire probable [Schulte] |
| Full Idea: Information theories of content [usually assume that] a column of smoke over there carries the information that fire is over there because it raises the probability of fire being over there. | |
| From: Peter Schulte (Mental Content [2023], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: Theorists usually add further conditions to this basic one. Fred Dretske is the source of this approach. Not promising, in my opinion. Surely the content is just smoke, and fire is one of dozens of possible inferences from it? |
| 8898 | Inculcations of meanings of words rests ultimately on sensory evidence [Quine] |
| Full Idea: All inculcation of meanings of words must rest ultimately on sensory evidence. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968], p.75) | |
| A reaction: This betrays Quine's behaviourist tendencies, and rules out introspection, definitions and inferences. Quine's conclusion is fairly total scepticism about meaning, but that is not surprising, given his external and meaningless starting point. |
| 8900 | In observation sentences, we could substitute community acceptance for analyticity [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the controversial notion of analyticity can be dispensed with, in our definition of observation sentences, in favour of the straightforward attitude of community-wide acceptance. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Epistemology Naturalized [1968], p.86) | |
| A reaction: That might be a reasonable account of 'bachelors'. If the whole community accepts 'God exists', does that make it analytic? If a whole (small!) community claims to actually observe a ghost or a flying saucer, is that then analytic? |