15 ideas
| 4261 | The Lottery Paradox says each ticket is likely to lose, so there probably won't be a winner [Bonjour, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The Lottery Paradox says that for 100 tickets and one winner, each ticket has a .99 likelihood of defeat, so they are all likely to lose, so there is unlikely to be a winner. | |
| From: report of Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], §5) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: The problem seems to be viewing each ticket in isolation. If I buy two tickets, I increase my chances of winning. |
| 15148 | Powers give explanations, without being necessary for some class membership [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Powers explain behaviours regardless of whether they are necessary for membership in a particular class of things. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, and is important for driving a wedge between powers and essences. If there are essences, they are not simply some bunch of powers. |
| 15145 | A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: The modern concept of a kind essence is a set of intrinsic properties that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the membership of something in a class of things, or 'kind'. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: I am always struck by the problem that the kind itself is constructed from the individuals, so circularity always seems to loom. |
| 15147 | Cluster kinds are explained simply by sharing some properties, not by an 'essence' [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: The fact that members of some cluster kinds are subjects of causal generalizations reflects the degree to which they share causally efficacious properties, not the fact that they may be composed of essence kinds per se. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right. I am a fan of individual essences, but not of kind essences. I take kinds, and kind explanations, to be straightforward inductive generalisations from individuals. Extreme stabilities give the illusion of a kind essence. |
| 4255 | Externalist theories of knowledge are one species of foundationalism [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Externalist theories of knowledge are one species of foundationalism. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why there shouldn't be a phenomenalist, anti-realist version of externalism, which just has 'starting points' instead of a serious commitment to foundations. |
| 4257 | The big problem for foundationalism is to explain how basic beliefs are possible [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental question that must be answered by any acceptable version of foundationalism is: how are basic beliefs possible? | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], §I) | |
| A reaction: This question seems to be asking for a justification for basic beliefs, which smacks of 'Who made God?' Look, basic beliefs are just basic, right? |
| 4256 | The main argument for foundationalism is that all other theories involve a regress leading to scepticism [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The central argument for foundationalism is simply that all other possible outcomes of the regress of justifications lead inexorably to scepticism. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], §I) | |
| A reaction: If you prefer coherence to foundations, you need the security of reason to assess the coherence (which seems to be an internal foundation!). |
| 4258 | Extreme externalism says no more justification is required than the truth of the belief [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The most extreme version of externalism would be one that held that the external condition required for justification is simply the truth of the belief in question. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], §II) | |
| A reaction: The question is, why should we demand any more than this? The problem case is, traditionally, the lucky guess, but naturalist may say that these just don't occur with any regularity. We only get beliefs right because they are true. |
| 4259 | External reliability is not enough, if the internal state of the believer is known to be irrational [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: External or objective reliability is not enough to offset subjective irrationality (such as unexplained clairvoyance). | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], §IV) | |
| A reaction: A good argument. Where do animals fit into this? If your clairvoyance kept working, in the end you might concede that you 'knew', even though you were baffled about how you managed it. |
| 4260 | Even if there is no obvious irrationality, it may be irrational to base knowledge entirely on external criteria [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: It may be that where there are no positive grounds for a charge of irrationality, the acceptance of a belief with only external justification is still subjectively irrational in a sense that rules out its being epistemologically justified. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge [1980], §IV) | |
| A reaction: A key objection. Surely rational behaviour requires a judgement to be made before a belief is accepted? If you are consistently clairvoyant, you must ask why. |
| 15144 | Explanation of causal phenomena concerns essential kinds - but also lack of them [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Scientific practices such as prediction and explanation regarding causal phenomena are concerned not merely with kinds having essences, but also with kinds lacking them. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: Not quite clear what he has in mind, but explanation should certainly involve a coherent picture, and not just the citation of some underlying causal mechanism. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 15146 | Some kinds, such as electrons, have essences, but 'cluster kinds' do not [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Many of the kinds we theorize about and experiment on today simply do not have essences. We can distinguish 'essence kinds', such as electrons, and 'cluster kinds', such as biological species. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is an important point for essentialists. He offers a strict criterion, in Idea 15145, for mind membership, but we might allow species to have essences by just relaxing the criteria a bit, and acknowledging some vagueness, especially over time. |
| 15151 | Many causal laws do not refer to kinds, but only to properties [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Causal laws often do not make reference to kinds of objects at all, but rather summarize relations between quantitative, causally efficacious properties of objects. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: This would only be a serious challenge if it was not possible to translate talk of properties into talk of kinds, and vice versa. |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |