4 ideas
2667 | A false object might give the same presentation as a true one [Arcesilaus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Arcesilaus said that no presentation proceeding from a true object is such that a presentation proceeding from a false one might not also be of the same form. This is the one argument that has held the field down to the present day. | |
From: report of Arcesilaus (fragments/reports [c.275 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.24.77 |
14790 | 'Abduction' is beginning a hypothesis, particularly if it includes preference of one explanation over others [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The first starting of a hypothesis and the entertaining of it …is an inferential step which I propose to call 'abduction'. This will include a preference for any one hypothesis over others which would equally explain the facts. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Abduction and Induction [1901], I) | |
A reaction: I take there to be no more important function within human thought than the procedure by which we give preference to one particular explanation. It only makes sense, I think, if we take it as part of a coherence theory of justification. |
14791 | Abduction involves original suggestions, and not just the testing involved in induction [Peirce] |
Full Idea: It is of the nature of abduction to involve an original suggestion; while typical induction has no originality in it, but only tests a suggestion already made. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Abduction and Induction [1901], I) | |
A reaction: Peirce's 'abduction' is not, then, just the choice of a best explanation. He came up with the idea because he was keen to capture the creative and imaginative character of rational thought. |
3102 | Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee] |
Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?' | |
From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I) | |
A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose. |