Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Epistemology of Modality', 'Theology and Verification' and 'Aenesidemus'

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5 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Consciousness is not entirely representational, because there are pains, and the self [Schulze, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Schulze said Reinhold and Kant violated their own theory with the thing-in-itself, and that Reinhold was wrong that all consciousnes is representational (since pain isn't), and the self can't represent itself without a regress.
     From: report of Gottlob Schulze (Aenesidemus [1792]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05
     A reaction: [my compressed version] This article demolished Reinhold, which is a shame, because if he had responded constructively to these criticisms he might have reached be best theory of his age. These are analytic style objections, by counterexample.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
How do you know you have conceived a thing deeply enough to assess its possibility? [Vaidya]
     Full Idea: The main issue with learning possibility from conceivability concerns how we can be confident that we have conceived things to the relevant level of depth required for the scenario to actually be a presentation or manifestation of a genuine possibility.
     From: Anand Vaidya (The Epistemology of Modality [2015], 1.2.2)
     A reaction: [He cites Van Inwagen 1998 for this idea] The point is that ignorant imagination can conceive of all sorts of absurd things which are seen to be impossible when enough information is available. We can hardly demand a criterion for this.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / c. Religious Verification
Belief in an afterlife may be unverifiable in this life, but it will be verifiable after death [Hick, by PG]
     Full Idea: Religion is capable of 'eschatological verification', by reaching evidence at the end of life, even though falsification of its claims is never found in this life; a prediction of coming to a Celestial City must await the end of the journey.
     From: report of John Hick (Theology and Verification [1960], III) by PG - Db (ideas)
It may be hard to verify that we have become immortal, but we could still then verify religious claims [Hick, by PG]
     Full Idea: Verification of religious claims after death is only possible if the concept of surviving death is intelligible, and we can understand the concept of immortality, despite difficulties in being certain that we had reached it.
     From: report of John Hick (Theology and Verification [1960], IV) by PG - Db (ideas)
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / d. Religious Falsification
Some things (e.g. a section of the expansion of PI) can be verified but not falsified [Hick, by PG]
     Full Idea: Falsification and verification are not logically equivalent. For example, you might verify the claim that there will be three consecutive sevens in the infinite expansion of PI, but you could never falsify such a claim.
     From: report of John Hick (Theology and Verification [1960], §II) by PG - Db (ideas)