6 ideas
| 3912 | I must exist in order to be mistaken, so that even if I am mistaken, I can't be wrong about my own existence [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: Since therefore I must exist in order to be mistaken, then even if I am mistaken, there can be no doubt that I am not mistaken in my knowledge that I exist…. I know that I exist, and I also know that I know. | |
| From: Augustine (City of God [c.427], Ch.XI.26) | |
| A reaction: Fine, but the main problem is his over-confidence about a stable personal identity that does the thinking. |
| 19518 | Evidentialism says justifications supervene on the available evidence [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: Fundamentally Evidentialism is a supervenience thesis, according to which facts about whether or not a person is justified in believing a proposition supervene on facts describing the evidence the person has. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Introduction to 'Evidentialism' [2004], p.1) | |
| A reaction: If facts 'describe', does that make them linguistic? That's not how I use 'facts'. A statement of a fact is not the same as the fact. An ugly fact can be beautifully expressed. I am, however, in favour of evidence. |
| 6683 | The contact of spirit and body is utterly amazing, and incomprehensible [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: The manner of contact of spirit with body, which produces a living being, is utterly amazing and beyond our powers of comprehension | |
| From: Augustine (City of God [c.427], XXI.10) | |
| A reaction: This leads to a rather clear objection against a theory which needs a miracle to explain a common natural phenomenon. At least Augustine was beginning to recognise that interaction is a bit of a problem. |
| 19519 | Rational decisions are either taken to be based on evidence, or to be explained causally [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: In decision theory, there is a view according to which the rational basis for all decisions is evidential. This kind of decision theory is typically contrasted with causal decision theory. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Introduction to 'Evidentialism' [2004], p.3) | |
| A reaction: Your Kantian presumably likes rational reflection on evidence, and your modern reductive scientist prefers causality (which doesn't really sound very rational). |
| 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 |
| 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. |