Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works (all lost)', 'works' and 'Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge'

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5 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification

9329	Justification is coherence with a background system; if irrefutable, it is knowledge [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: Justification is coherence with a background system which, when irrefutable, converts to knowledge.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: A problem (as the theory stands here) would be whether you have to be aware that the coherence is irrefutable, which would seem to require a pretty powerful intellect. If one needn't be aware of the irrefutability, how does it help my justification?

14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / d. Explaining people

7082	Nature requires causal explanations, but society requires clarification by reasons and motives [Weber, by Critchley]
	Full Idea: Weber coined the distinction between explanation and clarification, saying that natural phenomena require causal explanation, while social phenomena require clarification by giving reasons or offering possible motives for how things are.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.7
	A reaction: This is music to the ears of property dualists and other non-reductivists, but if you go midway in the hierarchy of animals (a mouse, say) the distinction blurs. Weber probably hadn't digested Darwin, whose big impact came around 1905.

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind

9330	Generalization seems to be more fundamental to minds than spotting similarities [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: There is a level of generalization we share with other animals in the responses to objects that suggest that generalization is a more fundamental operation of the mind than the observation of similarities.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: He derives this from Reid (1785) - Lehrer's hero - who argued against Hume that we couldn't spot similarities if we hadn't already generalized to produce the 'respect' of the similarity. Interesting. I think Reid must be right.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection

9328	All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / b. Fact and value

22155	We are disenchanted because we rely on science, which ignores values [Weber, by Boulter]
	Full Idea: Weber contends that modern western civilisation is 'disenchanted' because our society's method of arriving at beliefs about the world, that is, the sciences, is unable to address questions of value.
	From: report of Max Weber (works [1905]) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 6
	A reaction: This idea, made explicit by Hume's empirical attitude to values, is obviously of major importance. For we Aristotelians values are a self-evident aspect of nature. Boulter says philosophy has added to the disenchantment. I agree.