16 ideas
8877 | We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Coherence involves the logical, explanatory and probabilistic relations among one's beliefs, but it could not do to attain a tightly iterrelated system by lopping off whatever beliefs refuse to fit. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.4) | |
A reaction: This is clearly right, so the coherentist has to distinguish between lopping off a belief because it is inconvenient (fundamentalists rejecting textual contradictions), and lopping it off because it is wrong (chemists rejecting phlogiston). |
8884 | The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa] |
Full Idea: You could detect the absence of an eleven-dot pattern without having counted the dots, so your phenomenal concept of that array is not an arithmetical concept, and its content will not yield that its dots do indeed number eleven. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
A reaction: Sosa is discussing foundational epistemology, but this draws attention to the gulf that has to be leaped by structuralists. If eleven is not derived from the pattern, where does it come from? Presumably two eleven-dotters are needed, to map them. |
8878 | It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa] |
Full Idea: I am quite flexible on epistemic terminology, and am even willing to grant that a supermarket door can 'know' that someone is approaching. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
A reaction: I take this amazing admission to be a hallmark of externalism. Sosa must extend this to thermostats. So flowers know the sun has come out. This is knowledge without belief. Could the door ever be 'wrong'? |
8880 | In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa] |
Full Idea: In trying to reduce arithmetic to self-evident logical axioms, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7) | |
A reaction: I have heard Frege called "the greatest of all rationalist philosophers". However, the apparent reduction of arithmetic to analytic truths played into the hands of logical positivists, who could then marginalise arithmetic. |
8881 | Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Almost nothing that one knows of history or geography or science has adequate sensory support, present or even recalled. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7) | |
A reaction: This seems a bit glib, and may be false. The main issue to which this refers is, of course, induction, which (almost by definition) is a supposedly empirical process which goes beyond the empirical evidence. |
8882 | Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa] |
Full Idea: There is a difference between having just an indexical concept which one can apply to a perceptual characteristic (just saying 'this is thus'), and having a thicker perceptual concept of that characteristic. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.2) | |
A reaction: Both of these, of course, would precede any categorial concepts that enabled one to identify the characteristic or the object. This is a ladder foundationalists must climb if they are to reach the cellar of basic beliefs. |
8883 | Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Are foundationally justified beliefs perhaps those that result from attending to our experience and to features of it or in it? | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
A reaction: A promising suggestion. I do think our ideas acquire a different epistmological status once we have given them our full attention, though is that merely full consciousness, or full thoughtful evaluation? The latter I take to be what matters. Cf Idea 2414. |
8885 | Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Some intrinsic features of our thoughts are attributable to them directly, or foundationally, while others are attributable only based on counting or inference. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.5) | |
A reaction: In practice the brain combines the two at a speed which makes the distinction impossible. I'll show you ten dot-patterns: you pick out the sixer. The foundationalist problem is that only those drained of meaning could be foundational. |
8876 | Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Much of our propositional knowledge is not easily formulable, as when a witness looking at a police lineup may know what the culprit's face looks like. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.1) | |
A reaction: This is actually a very helpful defence of foundationalism, because it shows that we will accept perceptual experiences as knowledge when they are not expressed as explicit propositions. Davidson (Idea 8801), for example, must deal with this difficulty. |
8879 | Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa] |
Full Idea: One's beliefs can be comprehensively coherent without amounting to knowledge. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
A reaction: Beliefs that are fully foundational or reliably sourced may also fail to be knowledge. I take it that any epistemological theory must be fallibilist (Idea 6898). Rational coherentism will clearly be sensitive to error. |
7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
19896 | It is not a law if not endorsed by the public [Hooker,R] |
Full Idea: Laws they are not which public approbation hath not made so. | |
From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], I s.10), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government 134 n1 | |
A reaction: Margaret Thatcher's Poll Tax, rejected by public rebellion, illustrates the point. |
19891 | Rule of law is superior to autonomy, because citizens can see what is expected [Hooker,R] |
Full Idea: Men saw that to live by one man's will became the cause of all men's misery. This contrained them to come unto laws wherein all men might see their duty beforehand, and know the penalties of transgressing them. | |
From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], I s.10), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government 111 n1 | |
A reaction: One British school has a single rule, that pupils 'shall always treat other people with respect'. Presumably the rulers, as well as the pupils, must decide when this is transgressed. The rule of law may be preferable. |
19897 | Human laws must accord with the general laws of Nature [Hooker,R] |
Full Idea: Laws human must be made according to the general laws of Nature. | |
From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], III s.9), quoted by John Locke - Second Treatise of Government | |
A reaction: The point simply seems to be that they won't get assent from the public if they are not in accord with natural justice. Positivists say you can make any damned law you like. |
17005 | Natural things observe certain laws, and things cannot do otherwise if they retain their forms [Hooker,R] |
Full Idea: Things natural …do so necessarily observe their certain laws, that as long as they keep those forms which give them their being they cannot possibly be apt or inclinable to do otherwise than they do. | |
From: Richard Hooker (Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity [1593], 1.3.4), quoted by Marc Lange - Laws and Lawmakers 1.2 | |
A reaction: Cited by some as the beginnings of the idea of 'laws of nature', but it is striking that Hooker says the laws are controlled by 'forms' (which are Aristotelian essences). This is an essentialist view of laws, not a regularity or divine power one. |