55 ideas
| 3593 | The only way to specify the corresponding fact is asserting the sentence [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: The trouble with appeal to facts in the correspondence theory is that, in general, we have no way of indicating what fact a sentence, when true, corresponds to other than asserting the sentence. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.12) |
| 3585 | Coherence needs positive links, not just absence of conflict [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: It is often claimed that coherence is more than 'absence of conflict' between beliefs; it also involves 'positive connections'. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) |
| 3584 | Justification needs coherence, while truth might be ideal coherence [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary coherence theorists are advancing a theory of justification, not of truth, …with those who argue that truth is also coherence explaining it in terms of ideal coherence, or coherence at the limit of enquiry. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) |
| 3599 | Deduction shows entailments, not what to believe [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: The rules of deduction are rules of entailment, not rules of inference. They tell us what follows from what, not what to believe on the basis of what. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.18) |
| 16588 | I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I sooner judged that what lacks all form does not exist, than thought of as something in between form and nothing, neither formed nor nothing, unformed and next to nothing. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XII.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1 | |
| A reaction: Scholastics were struck by the contrast between this remark, and the remark of Averroes (Idea 16587) that prime matter was halfway existence. Their two great authorities disagreed! This sort of thing stimulated the revival of metaphysics. |
| 22979 | Three main questions seem to be whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I am told that I can ask three sorts of questions - whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.10) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a very Aristotelian approach. I am pleased to see that what it is and what sort it is are not conflated. The first one must be its individual essence, and the second its generic essence. |
| 5998 | From the necessity of the past we can infer the impossibility of what never happens [Diod.Cronus, by White,MJ] |
| Full Idea: Diodorus' Master Argument inferred that since what is past (i.e. true in the past) is necessary, and the impossible cannot follow from the possible, that therefore if something neither is nor ever will be the case, then it is impossible. | |
| From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Michael J. White - Diodorus Cronus | |
| A reaction: The argument is, apparently, no longer fully clear, but it seems to imply determinism, or at least a rejection of the idea that free will and determinism are compatible. (Epictetus 2.19) |
| 20832 | The Master Argument seems to prove that only what will happen is possible [Diod.Cronus, by Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: The Master Argument: these conflict 1) what is past and true is necessary, 2) the impossible does not follow from the possible, 3) something possible neither is nor will be true. Hence only that which is or will be true is possible. | |
| From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Epictetus - The Discourses 2.19.1 | |
| A reaction: [Epictetus goes on to discuss views about which of the three should be given up] It is possible there will be a sea fight tomorrow; tomorrow comes, and no sea fight; so there was necessarily no sea fight; so the impossible followed from the possible. |
| 14304 | Conditionals are true when the antecedent is true, and the consequent has to be true [Diod.Cronus] |
| Full Idea: The connected (proposition) is true when it begins with true and neither could nor can end with false. | |
| From: Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 03.4 | |
| A reaction: [Mumford got the quote from Bochenski] This differs from the truth-functional account because it says nothing about when the antecedent is false, which fits in also with the 'supposition' view, where A is presumed. This idea adds necessity. |
| 3591 | We could never pin down how many beliefs we have [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Asking how many beliefs I have is like asking how many drops of water there are in a bucket. If I believe my dog is in the garden, do I also believe he is not in the house, or in Siberia? | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.11) |
| 3582 | Propositions make error possible, so basic experiential knowledge is impossible [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Propositional content is inseparable from possible error. Therefore no judgement, however modest, is indubitable. So if basic experiential knowledge has to be indubitable, there is no such knowledge. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) |
| 3592 | Phenomenalism is a form of idealism [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenalism is a form of idealism. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.12) |
| 3579 | Sense data avoid the danger of misrepresenting the world [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: The point of insisting on the absolute immediacy of sense data is that representation always seems to involve the possibility of misrepresentation. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) |
| 3581 | Sense data can't give us knowledge if they are non-propositional [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Acquaintance with sense data is supposed to be a form of non-propositional knowledge, but how can something be non-propositional and yet knowledge? | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) |
| 22977 | I can distinguish different smells even when I am not experiencing them [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I can distinguish the scent of lilies from that of violets, even though there is no scent at all in my nostrils. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
| A reaction: Augustine has a nice introspective account of how we experience memory, and identifies lots of puzzling features. I know I can identify the smell of vinegar, but I can't bring it to mind, the way I can the appearance of roses. |
| 22982 | Why does joy in my mind make me happy, but joy in my memory doesn't? [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: How can it be that my mind can be happy because of the joy that is in it, and yet my memory is not sad by reason of the sadness that is in it? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
| A reaction: This seems to contradict his thought in Idea 22981, that memory and mind are the same. Recall seems to be a part of consciousness which is not fully wired up to the rest of the mind. |
| 22981 | Mind and memory are the same, as shown in 'bear it in mind' or 'it slipped from mind' [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: The mind and the memory are one and the same. We even call the memory the mind, for when we tell a person to remember something, we tell them to 'bear this in mind', and when we forget something 'it slipped out of my mind'. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
| A reaction: This idea has become familiar in modern neuroscience, I think, presumably because we do not find distinct types of neurons for consciousness and for memory. |
| 22980 | Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: The memory contains the innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these can have been conveyed to me by the bodily senses. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.12) | |
| A reaction: Even if you have a fairly empirical view of the sources of mathematics (a view with which I sympathise), it must by admitted that our endless extrapolations from the sources also reside in memory. So we remember thoughts as well as experiences. |
| 22983 | We would avoid remembering sorrow or fear if that triggered the emotions afresh [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: If we had to experience sorrow or fear every time that we mentioned these emotions, no one would be willing to speak of them. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14) | |
| A reaction: Remembering the death of a loved one can trigger fresh grief, but remembering their dangerous illness from which they recovered no longer contains the feeling of fear. |
| 3564 | Is it people who are justified, or propositions? [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: What exactly is supposed to be 'justified': a person's believing some particular proposition, or the proposition that he believes? | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: A key distinction. See my comment on Idea 3752. What would justify a sign saying 'treasure buried here'? People can be justified in believing falsehoods. How could a false proposition be justified? |
| 3595 | What works always takes precedence over theories [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: A theory that represents working practices as unworkable is a bad theory. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.13) | |
| A reaction: Good point. There's a lot of this about in epistemology, especially accusations of circularity or infinite regress, which (if true) don't somehow seem to worry the cove on the Clapham omnibus. |
| 3580 | Experience must be meaningful to act as foundations [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: If we are to treat experience as the foundation of knowledge, then experience must itself be understood to involve propositional content. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This sounds right, but since pure 'experience' obviously doesn't have propositional content, because it needs interpretation and evaluation, then this strategy won't work. |
| 3578 | Are empirical foundations judgements or experiences? [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Empirical foundationists must decide whether knowledge ultimately rests on either beliefs or judgements about experience, or on the experiences or sensations themselves. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: This clarifies the key issue very nicely, and I firmly vote for the former option. The simplest point is that error is possible about what sensations are taken to be of, so they won't do on their own. |
| 3576 | Foundationalists are torn between adequacy and security [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: The foundationalists dilemma is to define a basis for knowledge modest enough to be secure but rich enough to be adequate. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: ..And that is just what they are unable to do, precisely because adequate support would have to have enough content to be defeasibe or fallible. |
| 3577 | Strong justification eliminates error, but also reduces our true beliefs [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: A strongly justificationist view of rationality may not be so rational; we want the truth, but avoiding all errors and maximising our number of true beliefs are not the same thing. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 7) | |
| A reaction: An interesting dilemma - to avoid all errors, believing nothing; to maximise true belief, believe everything. It is rational to follow intuition, guesses, and a wing and a prayer - once you are experienced and educated. |
| 3589 | Why should diverse parts of our knowledge be connected? [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Why should political theory ever have much to do with quantum physics, or pet care with parliamentary history? | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This hardly demolishes the coherence account of justification, since your views on pet care had better be coherent, for your pet's sake. It's a pity people can make their politics cohere with their ethics. |
| 3590 | Coherence theory must give a foundational status to coherence itself [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Coherence theory implicitly assigns the criteria of coherence a special status. …In so far as this status is assigned a priori, the coherence theory represents a rationalistic variant of foundationalism. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: Nice move, to accuse coherence theorists of foundationalism! Wrong, though, because the a priori principles of coherence are not basic beliefs, but evolved pragmatic procedures (or something...). |
| 3571 | Externalism does not require knowing that you know [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: From an externalist point of view, knowing about one's reliability is not required for 'first-order' knowledge. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: Ah. 'First-order knowledge' - what's that? What we used to call 'true belief', I would say. Adequate for animals, and a good guide to daily life, but uncritical and unjustifiable. |
| 3574 | Externalism ignores the social aspect of knowledge [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: A problem with pure externalism is that it ignores the social dimension of knowledge. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be contradicted by Idea 3573, which allows a social dimension to agreement over what is reliable. I am inclined to take knowledge as an entirely social concept. |
| 3569 | In the causal theory of knowledge the facts must cause the belief [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: According to Goldman's early causal theory of knowledge, my belief that p counts as knowledge if and only if it is caused by the fact that p. This is sufficient as well as necessary, and so does not involve justification. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: I take his theory simply to be false because what causes a belief is not what justifies it. I expect my mother to ring; the phone rings; I 'know' it is my mother (and it is), because I strongly expect it. |
| 3567 | How could there be causal relations to mathematical facts? [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: It is not clear what would even be meant by supposing that there are causal relations to mathematical facts. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: I agree, though platonists seem to be willing to entertain the possibility that there are causal relations, for which no further explanation can be given. Better is knowledge without a causal relation. |
| 3586 | Only a belief can justify a belief [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Justification requires logical rather than causal connections. That is the point of the slogan that only a belief can justify a belief. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: It seems better to talk of 'rational' connections, rather than 'logical' connections. It isn't 'logical' to believe that someone despises me because their lip is faintly curled. |
| 3573 | Externalist reliability refers to a range of conventional conditions [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: The radical externalists' key notion is 'reliability', which is a normative condition governing adequate performance, involving reference to a range of conditions which we decide rather than discover. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
| A reaction: If we can decide whether a source is reliable, we can also decide whether a reliable source has performed well on this occasion, and that will always take precedence. |
| 3565 | Sometimes I ought to distrust sources which are actually reliable [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: I may reach a belief using a procedure that is in fact reliable, but which I ought to distrust. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 1) | |
| A reaction: The tramp on the park bench who gives good share tips. The clock that is finally working, but has been going haywire for weeks. Reliabilism is a bad theory. |
| 3566 | We control our beliefs by virtue of how we enquire [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: We control our beliefs by virtue of how we enquire. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 1) |
| 3594 | Scepticism just reveals our limited ability to explain things [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: All the sceptic's arguments show is that there are limits to our capacity to give reasons or cite evidence. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.13) |
| 3575 | Scepticism can involve discrepancy, relativity, infinity, assumption and circularity [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: The classical Five Modes of Scepticism are Discrepancy (people always disagree), Relativity ('according to you'), Infinity (infinite regress of questions), Assumption (ending in dogma) and Circularity (end up where you started). | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: I take Relativity to be different from scepticism (because, roughly, it says there is nothing to know), and the others go with Agrippa's Trilemma of justification, which may have solutions. |
| 3587 | Seeing electrons in a cloud chamber requires theory [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: Armed with enough theory, we can see electrons in a cloud chamber. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) |
| 22978 | Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
| A reaction: He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind. |
| 22984 | Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I do not understand the power of memory that is in myself, although without it I could not even speak of myself. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.16) | |
| A reaction: Even if the self is not identical with memory, this idea seems to establish that memory is an essential aspect of the self. This point is neglected by those who see the self as an entity (the 'soul pearl') which persists through all experience. |
| 5982 | If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: How do prophets see the future, if there is not a future to be seen? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.17) | |
| A reaction: The answer, I suspect, is that prophets can't see the future. The prospect that the future already exists would seem to saboutage human freedom and responsibility, and point to Calvinist predestination, and even fatalism. |
| 22976 | Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: In memory everything is preserved separately, according to its category. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as the first seeds of the idea that the mind functions by means of mental files. Our memories of cats are 'close to' or 'linked to' our memories of dogs. |
| 3588 | Foundationalists base meaning in words, coherentists base it in sentences [Williams,M] |
| Full Idea: In the foundationalist picture the meaning of individual words (defined ostensively) is primary, and that of sentences is derivative. For coherentists sentences come first, with meaning understood functionally or inferentially. | |
| From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: Coherentism about language doesn't imply coherentism about justification. On language I vote for foundationalism, because I am impressed by the phenomenon of compositionality. |
| 6024 | Thought is unambiguous, and you should stick to what the speaker thinks they are saying [Diod.Cronus, by Gellius] |
| Full Idea: No one says or thinks anything ambiguous, and nothing should be held to be being said beyond what the speaker thinks he is saying. | |
| From: report of Diodorus Cronus (fragments/reports [c.300 BCE]) by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 11.12.2 | |
| A reaction: A key argument in favour of propositions, implied in this remark, is that propositions are never ambiguous, though the sentences expressing them may be |
| 22985 | Everyone wants happiness [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: Surely happiness is what everyone wants, so much so that there can be none who do not want it? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.20) | |
| A reaction: His concept of happiness is, of course, religious. Occasionally you meet habitual grumblers about life who give the impression that they are only happy when they are discontented. So happiness is achieving desires, not feeling good? |
| 5984 | Maybe time is an extension of the mind [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I begin to wonder whether time is an extension of the mind itself. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.26) | |
| A reaction: The observation that the mind creates a 'specious present' (spreading experience out over a short fraction of second) reinforces this. Personally I like David Marshall's proposal that consciousness is entirely memory, which would deny this idea. |
| 22888 | To be aware of time it can only exist in the mind, as memory or anticipation [Augustine, by Bardon] |
| Full Idea: Augustine answers that for us to be aware of time it must exist only in the mind, …and the difference between past and future is just the difference between memory and anticipation. | |
| From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's' | |
| A reaction: This is an extreme idealist view. Are we to say that the past consists only of what can be remembered, and the future only of what is anticipated? Absurd anti-realism, in my view. Where do his concepts come from, asks Le Poidevin. |
| 5980 | How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist? [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: A short time ago or a short time ahead we might put at ten days, but how can anything which does not exist be either long or short? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15) | |
| A reaction: A nice question, which gets at the paradoxical nature of time very nicely. How can it be long, but non-existent? We could break the paradox by concluding '..and therefore time does exist', even though we can't see how. |
| 5979 | If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: Of the three divisions of time, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14) | |
| A reaction: This is the oldest bewilderment about time, which naturally leads us to the thought that time cannot actually 'exist'. The remark implies that at least 'now' is safe, but that also succumbs to paradox pretty quickly. |
| 5981 | The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: We cannot say that the whole of the current year is present, and if the whole of it is not present, the year is not present. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15) | |
| A reaction: Another nice way of presenting the paradox of time. We are in a particular year, so it has to be real. |
| 5978 | I know what time is, until someone asks me to explain it [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I know well enough what time is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14) | |
| A reaction: A justly famous remark, even though it adds nothing to our knowledge of time. This sort of thought pushes us towards accepting many things as axiomatic, such as time, space, identity, persons, mind. |
| 5983 | I disagree with the idea that time is nothing but cosmic movement [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: I once heard a learned man say that time is nothing but the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars, but I do not agree. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.22) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to say that you either take time or movement as axiomatic, and describe one in terms of the other, but you are stuck unable to give the initial statement of the axiom without mentioning the second property you were saving for later. |
| 5977 | Heaven and earth must be created, because they are subject to change [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: The fact that heaven and earth are there proclaims that they were created, for they are subject to change and variation; ..the meaning of change and variation is that something is there which was not there before. | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.04) | |
| A reaction: It seems possible that the underlying matter is eternal (as in various conservation laws, such as that of energy), and that all change is in the form rather than the substance. |
| 22887 | If God existed before creation, why would a perfect being desire to change things? [Augustine, by Bardon] |
| Full Idea: If nothing existed by God before creation, then what could have happened to, or within, God that led God to decide to create the universe at that particular moment? Why would an eternal or perfect being want or need to change? | |
| From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's' | |
| A reaction: I suppose you could reply that change is superior to stasis, but then why did God delay the creation? |
| 5976 | If God is outside time in eternity, can He hear prayers? [Augustine] |
| Full Idea: O Lord, since you are outside time in eternity, are you unaware of the things that I tell you? | |
| From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.01) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as the single most difficult and most elusive question about the nature of a supreme divine being. If the being is trapped in time, as we are, it is greatly diminished, and if it is outside, it is hard to see how it could be a participant. |