5 ideas
| 19679 | 'Access' internalism says responsibility needs access; weaker 'mentalism' needs mental justification [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: Strong 'access' internalism says the justification must be accessible to the person holding the belief (for cognitive duty, or blame), and weaker 'mentalist' internalism just says the justification must supervene on mental features of the individual. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Epistemic Justification [2011], III) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] I think I'm a strong access internalist. I doubt whether there is a correct answer to any of this, but my conception of someone knowing something involves being able to invoke their reasons for it. Even if they forget the source. |
| 19678 | Strong foundationalism needs strict inferences; weak version has induction, explanation, probability [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: Strong foundationalists require truth-preserving inferential links between the foundations and what the foundations support, while weaker versions allow weaker connections, such as inductive support, or best explanation, or probabilistic support. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Epistemic Justification [2011], II) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Alston 1989] Personally I'm a coherentist about justification, but I'm a fan of best explanation, so I'd vote for that. It's just that best explanation is not a very foundationalist sort of concept. Actually, the strong version is absurd. |
| 7076 | Mill wondered if he would be happy if all his aims were realised, and answered no [Mill, by Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Mill, in his crisis of 1827, asked himself whether he would be happy if all his objects in life were realised, and had to answer that he would not. | |
| From: report of John Stuart Mill (Autobiography [1870]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: The reply is either that happiness is in the striving, or that his aims in life were wrong, or that happiness is impossible. It seems to contradict Kant's definition (Idea 1452). |
| 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. |