20 ideas
2626 | A philosopher is outside any community of ideas [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas; that is what makes him a philosopher. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], 455) | |
A reaction: A bit surprising from the man who gave us 'language games' and 'private language argument'. |
3695 | Philosophy is a priori if it is anything [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: My conviction is that philosophy is a priori if it is anything. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], Pref) | |
A reaction: How about knowledge of a posteriori necessities, such as the length of a metre, known by observation of the standard metre in Paris? |
3651 | Perceiving necessary connections is the essence of reasoning [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: If one never in fact grasps any necessary connections between anything, it is hard to see what reasoning could possible amount to. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.3) |
3700 | Coherence can't be validated by appeal to coherence [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The epistemic authority of coherence cannot itself be established by appeal to coherence. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7 n50) | |
A reaction: The standard approach amongs modern philosophers (following, I think, Kripke) is to insist on 'intuition' as basic, despite all its problems. I have no better suggestion. |
6569 | 'This sentence is false' sends us in a looping search for its proposition [Wittgenstein, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: According to Wittgenstein, 'this sentence is false' sends us off on an endless, looping search for the proposition to be evaluated. | |
From: report of Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], §691) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Fogelin quotes this as one possible strategy for dealing with the Liar Paradox. It doesn't sound like much of a solution to the paradox, merely an account of why it is so annoying. Wittgenstein's challenge is that the Cretan can't state his problem. |
3697 | The concept of possibility is prior to that of necessity [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: While necessity and possibility are interdefinable concepts, it is the idea of a possible world or situation which is intuitively primary. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.3) |
3704 | Moderate rationalists believe in fallible a priori justification [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Moderate rationalism preserves a priori justification, but rejects the idea that it is infallible. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) |
3707 | Our rules of thought can only be judged by pure rational insight [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Criteria or rules do not somehow apply to themselves. They must be judged by the sort of rational insight or intuition that the rationalist is advocating. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §5.2) |
3696 | A priori justification requires understanding but no experience [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: A proposition will count as being justified a priori as long as no appeal to experience is needed for the proposition to be justified - once it is understood. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.2) | |
A reaction: Could you 'understand' that a square cannot be circular without appeal to experience? I'm losing faith in the pure a priori. |
3703 | You can't explain away a priori justification as analyticity, and you can't totally give it up [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Moderate empiricists try unsuccessfully to explain a priori justification by means of analyticity, and radical empiricist attempts to dispense with a priori justification end in nearly total scepticism. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) | |
A reaction: My working theory is neither of the above. Because we can abstract from the physical world, we can directly see/experience generalised (and even necessary) truths about it. |
3706 | A priori justification can vary in degree [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: A priori justification can vary in degree. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.5) | |
A reaction: This idea, which I trace back at least to Russell, seems to me one of breakthrough ideas in modern thought. It means that a priori knowledge can be reconnected with a posteriori knowledge. |
3699 | The induction problem blocks any attempted proof of physical statements [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The attempt to prove physical statements on the basis of sensory evidence is defeated by the problem of induction. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.6) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a logician's use of the word 'prove', which would be a pretty forlorn hope. Insofar as experience proves anything, fully sensing a chair proves its existence. |
3701 | Externalist theories of justification don't require believers to have reasons for their beliefs [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: An externalist theory of epistemic justification or warrant need not involve the possession by the believer of anything like a reason for thinking that their belief is true. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7) | |
A reaction: That is the problem with externalism. If the believer does not have a reason, then why would they believe? Externalists are interesting on justification, but daft about belief. Why do I believe I know something, when I can't recall how I learnt it? |
3790 | Causes of beliefs are irrelevant to their contents [Wittgenstein] |
Full Idea: The causes of our belief in a proposition are indeed irrelevant to the question of what we believe. | |
From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Zettel [1950], i.437) | |
A reaction: This should have nipped the causal theory of knowledge in the bud before it got started. Everyone has a different cause for their belief that 'it sometimes rains'. Cause is not justification. |
3702 | Externalism means we have no reason to believe, which is strong scepticism [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: If externalism is the final story, we have no reason to think that any of our beliefs are true, which amounts to a very strong and intuitively implausible version of scepticism. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7) | |
A reaction: A very good point. I may, like a cat, know many things, with good external support, but as soon as I ask sceptical questions, I sink without trace if I lack internal reasons. |
3709 | Induction must go beyond the evidence, in order to explain why the evidence occurred [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Inductive explanations must be conceived of as something stronger than mere Humean constant conjunction; …anything less than this will not explain why the inductive evidence occurred in the first place. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §7.7) |
3708 | All thought represents either properties or indexicals [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: I assume that the contents of thought can be accounted for by appeal to just two general sorts of ingredient - properties (including relations) and indexicals. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §6.7) | |
A reaction: I don't accept that relations are a type of properties. Since he does not include objects or substances, I take it that he considers objects to be bundles of properties. |
3698 | Indeterminacy of translation is actually indeterminacy of meaning and belief [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The thesis of the indeterminacy of translation would be better described as the thesis of the indeterminacy of meaning and belief. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.5) | |
A reaction: Not necessarily. It is not incoherent to believe that the target people have a coherent and stable system of meaning and belief, but finding its translation indeterminate because it is holistic, and rooted in a way of life. |
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. |