Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics' and 'works'

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4 ideas

3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth

14713	Truth in a scenario is the negation in that scenario being a priori incoherent [Chalmers]
	Full Idea: The epistemic 1-intension for a sentence S is True at a scenario W iff (W and not-S) is a priori incoherent.
	From: David J.Chalmers (Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics [2004], p.180-4), quoted by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics
	A reaction: See Two-Dimensional Semantics (in 'Language') and Chalmers for the background to this idea. I love the coherence view of justification, but get a bit nervous when people start defining truth in that way.

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

14712	A sentence is a priori if no possible way the world might actually be could make it false [Chalmers]
	Full Idea: The Core Thesis for rationalist 2D semantics is that for any sentence S, S is apriori iff S has a necessary 1-intension. (That is, there is no possible way the world might be that, if it actually obtained, would make S false).
	From: David J.Chalmers (Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics [2004], p.165), quoted by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics 2.3.2
	A reaction: [The parenthesis is by Schroeter] A '1-intension' is defined by a diagonal on a 2D semantic matrix. Chalmers defends conceivability as the guide to possibility. This is a very traditional view of the a priori, expressed in modern terms.

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

468	Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
	Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
	From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

4366	We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse]
	Full Idea: Williams has expressed pessimism about the project of Aristotelian naturalism on the grounds that his conception of nature, and thereby of human nature, was normative, and that, in a scientific age, this is not a conception that we can take on board.
	From: report of Bernard Williams (works [1971]) by Rosalind Hursthouse - On Virtue Ethics Ch.11
	A reaction: I think there is a compromise here. The existentialist denial of intrinsic human nature seems daft, but Aristotelians must grasp the enormous flexibility that is possible to human behaviour because of the open nature of rationality.