Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'lectures' and 'Content Preservation'

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4 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism
8417 Direct realism is false, because defeasibility questions are essential to perceptual knowledge [Galloway]
     Full Idea: Since awareness of defeasibility issues is an essential prerequisite for any genuine perceptual knowledge of even straightforward physical objects, any realist theory of perception must be indirect or representative, rather than direct.
     From: David Galloway (lectures [2007]), quoted by PG - lecture notes
     A reaction: [a very compressed summary] A very interesting claim. The issue might be over what direct realism is actually claiming. If it claims full-blown knowledge, then the criticism seems good. But it might survive if it claimed rather less.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
9382 Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
     Full Idea: I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject.
     From: Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
     A reaction: I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
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
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
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.