Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Internalism Exposed', 'Truth-making without Truth-makers' and 'A Philosophy of Boredom'

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17 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 5. Later European Thought
Modern Western culture suddenly appeared in Jena in the 1790s [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: Foucault was right to say that Jena in the 1790s was the arena where the fundamental interests in modern Western culture suddenly had their breakthrough.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2)
     A reaction: [Hölderlin, Novalis, Tieck, Schlegel, based on Kant and Fichte] Romanticism seems to have been born then. Is that the essence of modernism? Foucault and his pals are hoping to destroy the Enlightenment by ignoring it, but that is modern too.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
You can't understand love in terms of 'if and only if...' [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: I once began reading a philosophical article on love. The following statement soon came up: 'Bob loves Kate if and only if...' At that point I stopped reading. Such a formalized approach was unsuitable, because the actual phenomenon would be lost.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Pref)
     A reaction: It is hard to disagree! However, if your best friend comes to you and says, 'I can't decide whether I am really in love with Kate; what do you think?', how are you going to respond. You offer 'if and only if..', but in a warm and sympathetic way!
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
If subjective and objective begin to merge, then so do primary and secondary qualities [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: It is doubtful whether the traditional dichotomy between the strictly subjective and the strictly objective can still be maintained; if not, we must also revise the distinction between primary and secondary qualities.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Very perceptive. The reason why I am so keen to hang onto the primary/secondary distinction is because I want to preserve objectivity (and realism). I much prefer Locke to Hume, as empiricist spokesmen.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 3. Internal or External / a. Pro-internalism
We can't only believe things if we are currently conscious of their justification - there are too many [Goldman]
     Full Idea: Strong internalism says only current conscious states can justify beliefs, but this has the problem of Stored Beliefs, that most of our beliefs are stored in memory, and one's conscious state includes nothing that justifies them.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §2)
     A reaction: This point seems obviously correct, but one could still have a 'fairly strong' version, which required that you could always call into consciousness the justificiation for any belief that you happened to remember.
Internalism must cover Forgotten Evidence, which is no longer retrievable from memory [Goldman]
     Full Idea: Even weak internalism has the problem of Forgotten Evidence; the agent once had adequate evidence that she subsequently forgot; at the time of epistemic appraisal, she no longer has adequate evidence that is retrievable from memory.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §3)
     A reaction: This is certainly a basic problem for any account of justification. It will rule out any strict requirement that there be actual mental states available to support a belief. Internalism may be pushed to include non-conscious parts of the mind.
Internal justification needs both mental stability and time to compute coherence [Goldman]
     Full Idea: The problem for internalists of Doxastic Decision Interval says internal justification must avoid mental change to preserve the justification status, but must also allow enough time to compute the formal relations between beliefs.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §4)
     A reaction: The word 'compute' implies a rather odd model of assessing coherence, which seems instantaneous for most of us where everyday beliefs are concerned. In real mental life this does not strike me as a problem.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / c. Coherentism critique
Coherent justification seems to require retrieving all our beliefs simultaneously [Goldman]
     Full Idea: The problem of Concurrent Retrieval is a problem for internalism, notably coherentism, because an agent could ascertain coherence of her entire corpus only by concurrently retrieving all of her stored beliefs.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §3)
     A reaction: Sounds neat, but not very convincing. Goldman is relying on scepticism about short-term memory, but all belief and knowledge will collapse if we go down that road. We couldn't do simple arithmetic if Goldman's point were right.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / a. Reliable knowledge
Reliability involves truth, and truth is external [Goldman]
     Full Idea: Reliability involves truth, and truth (on the usual assumption) is external.
     From: Alvin I. Goldman (Internalism Exposed [1999], §6)
     A reaction: As an argument for externalism this seems bogus. I am not sure that truth is either 'internal' or 'external'. How could the truth of 3+2=5 be external? Facts are mostly external, but I take truth to be a relation between internal and external.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
There are 'conceptual' explanations, with their direction depending on complexity [Schnieder]
     Full Idea: The direction of conceptual explanations seems to be owed to factors of conceptual complexity and primitiveness.
     From: Benjamin Schnieder (Truth-making without Truth-makers [2006], p.33), quoted by David Liggins - Truth-makers and dependence 10.2
     A reaction: Schnieder proposes that there are just 'causal' and 'conceptual' explanations. Liggins objects that there are other types of dependence which offer explanations.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / b. Types of emotion
Emotions have intentional objects, while a mood is objectless [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: An emotion normally has an intentional object, while a mood is objectless.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: It doesn't follow that the object of the emotion is clearly understood, or even that it is conscious. One may experience rising anger while struggling to see what its object is. Artistic symbolism seems to involve objects that create moods.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2)
     A reaction: [He credits Adorno with this] A good thought, which should be immediately emailed to Epicurus for comment. Which is worse - to die when you have barely started your great work (Ramsey), or dying in full flow (Schubert)?
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 4. Boredom
We can be unaware that we are bored [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: It is perfectly possible to be bored without being aware of the fact.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1)
     A reaction: True. Also, I sometimes mistake indecision for boredom. It becomes very hard to say for certain whether you are bored. I am certain that I am bored if I am forced to do something which has no interest for me. The big one is free-but-bored.
Boredom is so radical that suicide could not overcome it; only never having existed would do it [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: Boredom is so radical that it cannot even be overcome by suicide, only by something completely impossible - not to have existed at all.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1)
     A reaction: [he cites Fernando Pessoa for this] The actor George Sanders left a suicide note saying that he was just bored. A cloud of boredom is left hanging in the air where he was.
We are bored because everything comes to us fully encoded, and we want personal meaning [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: Boredom results from a lack of personal meaning, which is due to the fact that all objects and actions come to us fully encoded, while we (as descendants of Romanticism) insist on a personal meaning.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This idea justifies me categorising Boredom under Existentialism. This is an excellent idea, and perfectly captures the experience of most teenagers, for whom it is impossible to impose a personal meaning on such a vast cultural reality.
The profoundest boredom is boredom with boredom [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: In the profound form of boredom, I am bored by boredom itself.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Boredom is boring, which is why I try to avoid it. Third-level boredom is a rather enchanting idea. It sounds remarkably similar to the Buddha experiencing enlightenment.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 1. Purpose of a State
We have achieved a sort of utopia, and it is boring, so that is the end of utopias [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: There can hardly be any new utopias. To the extent that we can imagine a utopia, it must already have been realised. A utopia cannot, by definition, include boredom, but the 'utopia' we are living in is boring.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 8989. Lots of people (including me) think that we have achieved a kind of liberal, democratic, individualistic 'utopia', but the community needs of people are not being met, so we still have a way to go.
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
The concept of 'alienation' seems no longer applicable [Svendsen]
     Full Idea: I do not believe that the concept of 'alienation' is all that applicable any more.
     From: Lars Svendsen (A Philosophy of Boredom [2005], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Interesting but puzzling. If alienation is the key existential phenomenon of a capitalist society, why should it fade away if we remain capitalist? He is proposing that it has metamorphosed into boredom, which may be a different sort of alienation.