Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Confessions of a Philosopher', 'There is no a Priori' and 'Two Problems of Epistemology'

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5 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities

9354	Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt]
	Full Idea: Why should we accept that necessities can only be known a priori? Prima facie, some necessities are known empirically; for example, that water is necessarily H2O, and that Hesperus is necessarily Phosphorus.
	From: Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
	A reaction: An important question, whatever your view. If the only thing we can know a priori is necessities, it doesn't follow that necessities can only be known a priori. It gets interesting if we say that some necessities can never be known a priori.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts

9353	We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt]
	Full Idea: We have no need to turn to an a priori explanation of our knowledge of mathematics and logic. Our intuitions that this knowledge is not justified in some direct empirical way is preserved. It is justified in an indirect holistic way.
	From: Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
	A reaction: I think this is roughly the right story, but the only way it will work is if we have some sort of theory of abstraction, which gets us up the ladder of generalisations to the ones which, it appears, are necessarily true.

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 11. Denying the A Priori

9356	The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt]
	Full Idea: The whole idea of the a priori is too obscure for it to feature in a good explanation of our knowledge of anything.
	From: Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §3)
	A reaction: I never like this style of argument. It would be nice if all the components of all our our explanations were crystal clear. Total clarity about anything is probably a hopeless dream, and we may have to settle for murky corners in all explanations.

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification

18284	Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
	Full Idea: Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
	From: Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
	A reaction: This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 3. Limits of Introspection

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.