19261
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Understanding is seeing coherent relationships in the relevant information [Kvanvig]
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Full Idea:
What is distinctive about understanding (after truth is satisfied) is the internal seeing or appreciating of explanatory and other coherence-inducing relationships in a body of information that is crucial for understanding.
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From:
Jonathan Kvanvig (The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding [2003], 198), quoted by Anand Vaidya - Understanding and Essence 'Distinction'
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A reaction:
For me this ticks exactly the right boxes. Coherent explanations are what we want. The hardest part is the ensure their truth. Kvanvig claims this is internal, so we can understand even if, Gettier-style, our external connections are lucky.
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18967
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A 'proposition' is said to be the timeless cognitive part of the meaning of a sentence [Quine]
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Full Idea:
A 'proposition' is the meaning of a sentence. More precisely, since propositions are supposed to be true or false once and for all, it is the meaning of an eternal sentence. More precisely still, it is the 'cognitive' meaning, involving truth, not poetry.
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From:
Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.139)
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A reaction:
Quine defines this in order to attack it. I equate a proposition with a thought, and take a sentence to be an attempt to express a proposition. I have no idea why they are supposed to be 'timeless'. Philosophers have some very odd ideas.
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18968
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The problem with propositions is their individuation. When do two sentences express one proposition? [Quine]
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Full Idea:
The trouble with propositions, as cognitive meanings of eternal sentences, is individuation. Given two eternal sentences, themselves visibly different linguistically, it is not sufficiently clear under when to say that they mean the same proposition.
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From:
Willard Quine (Propositional Objects [1965], p.140)
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A reaction:
If a group of people agree that two sentences mean the same thing, which happens all the time, I don't see what gives Quine the right to have a philosophical moan about some dubious activity called 'individuation'.
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