13 ideas
23551 | It is necessary for a belief that it be held for a length of time [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: A mental state cannot count as a belief unless it has a reasonable life expectancy. It must be the sort of thing that one is disposed to assert not only now but in the future too. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 2.3) | |
A reaction: There are obvious counterexamples, where a firm belief is strongly formed, only to be dashed by a counterexample (such as a new witness in court) soon afterwards. That said, this idea is obviously correct. |
23558 | Offering knowledge needs accuracy and sincerity; receiving it needs testimonial justice [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: Accuracy and Sincerity sustain trust as regards contributing knowledge to the pool; Testimonial Justice helps sustain trust as regards acquiring knowledge from the pool. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 5.1) | |
A reaction: Fricker's contribution is to show that acquiring knowledge has its own virtues, alongside discovering and communicating it. I take the underlying virtue to be absolute respect for all possible contributors. |
23550 | Burge says we are normally a priori entitled to believe testimony [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: In Tyler Burge's view we have an a priori entitlement for believing what others tell us, other things being equal. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 1.3 n11) | |
A reaction: [Burge 'Content Preservation' 1992] Close to Davidson's Charity (that without a default assumption of truth-speaking language won't work at all). Davidson is right about casual conversation, but for important testimony Burge should be more cautious. |
23552 | We assess testimonial probabilities by the speaker, the listener, the facts, and the circumstances [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: A person should receive the word of his interlocutor in the light of the probability that someone like that would (be able and willing to) to tell someone like him the truth about something like this in circumstances like these. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 3.2) | |
A reaction: That's a pretty good summary of the rational response to testimony. I can't think of any other factors. |
23553 | Testimonial judgement is not logical, but produces reasons and motivations [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: Moral/testimonial judgement is non-inferential, uncodifiable, intrinsically motivating, intrinsically reason-giving, and typically has an emotional aspect. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Fricker's compressed summary of her findings about testimony. The first words indicate her belief that assessment of testimony is a moral affair. |
23555 | Assessing credibility involves the impact of both the speaker's and the listener's social identity [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: For a hearer to identify the impact of identity power in their credibility judgements they must be alert to the impact not only of the speaker's social identity, but also the impact of the own social identity on their credibility judgements. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 4.1) | |
A reaction: [why are all sentences in academic writing twice as long as they need to be? - that question is deeper than it looks!] This is a salutary warning. Not just 'what are my prejudices?', but also 'what is this person willing to tell a person like me?'. |
23554 | Judgements can be unreflective and non-inferential, yet rational, by being sensitive to experience [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: Our idea of testimonial sensibility is a spontaneous critical sensitivity permanently in training and adapting to experience. …This gives us a picture of how judgements can be rational yet unreflective, critical yet non-inferential. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 3.4) | |
A reaction: Love this. I want to connect human reasoning to good judgement by animals, and I offer the word 'sensible' to bridge the gap. Dogs and scientists can be sensible. Fricker spells out more fully what I have in mind, with reference to testimony. |
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? |
23557 | To judge agents in remote times and cultures we need a moral resentment weaker than blame [Fricker,M] |
Full Idea: I think that identifying forms of moral resentment that fall short of blame but which are agent-directed is the key to achieving appropriate moral response across historical and cultural distance. | |
From: Miranda Fricker (Epistemic Injustice [2007], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Very good. Simple blame for horrible actions performed in remote rather horrible societies is pointless. But switching off moral sensibilities when reading history and anthropology looks like a slippery slope, so 'moral resentment' is nice. |
17402 | Mendeleev saw three principles in nature: matter, force and spirit (where the latter seems to be essence) [Mendeleev, by Scerri] |
Full Idea: Mendeleev rejected one unifying principles in favour of three basic components of nature: matter (substance), force (energy), and spirit (soul). 'Spirit' is said to be what we now mean by essentialism - what is irreducibly peculiar to the object. | |
From: report of Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]) by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making' |
17399 | Elements don't survive in compounds, but the 'substance' of the element does [Mendeleev] |
Full Idea: Neither mercury as a metal nor oxygen as a gas is contained in mercury oxide; it only contains the substance of the elements, just as steam only contains the substance of ice. | |
From: Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870], I:23), quoted by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Nature' | |
A reaction: [1889 edn] Scerri glosses the word 'substance' as meaning essence. |
17400 | Mendeleev focused on abstract elements, not simple substances, so he got to their essence [Mendeleev, by Scerri] |
Full Idea: Because he was attempting to classify abstract elements, not simple substances, Mendeleev was not misled by nonessential chemical properties. | |
From: report of Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]) by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making' | |
A reaction: I'm not fully clear about this, but I take it that Mendeleev stood back from the messy observations, and tried to see the underlying simpler principles. 'Simple substances' were ones that had not so far been decomposed. |
17401 | Mendeleev had a view of elements which allowed him to overlook some conflicting observations [Mendeleev] |
Full Idea: His view of elements allowed Mendeleev to maintain the validity of the periodic table even in instances where observational evidence seemed to point against it. | |
From: Dmitri Mendeleev (The Principles of Chemistry [1870]), quoted by Eric R. Scerri - The Periodic Table 04 'Making' | |
A reaction: Mendeleev seems to have focused on abstract essences of elements, rather than on the simplest substances they had so far managed to isolate. |