7 ideas
| 19566 | Epistemology does not just concern knowledge; all aspects of cognitive activity are involved [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: Epistemology is not just knowledge. There is enquiring, reasoning, changes of view, beliefs, assumptions, presuppositions, hypotheses, true beliefs, making sense, adequacy, understanding, wisdom, responsible enquiry, and so on. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'What') | |
| A reaction: [abridged] Stop! I give in. His topic is whether truth is central to epistemology. Rivals seem to be knowledge-first, belief-first, and justification-first. I'm inclined to take justification as the central issue. Does it matter? |
| 19568 | Making sense of things, or finding a good theory, are non-truth-related cognitive successes [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: There are cognitive successes that are not obviously truth related, such as the concepts of making sense of the course of experience, and having found an empirically adequate theory. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
| A reaction: He is claiming that truth is not the main aim of epistemology. He quotes Marian David for the rival view. Personally I doubt whether the concepts of 'making sense' or 'empirical adequacy' can be explicated without mentioning truth. |
| 19567 | The 'defeasibility' approach says true justified belief is knowledge if no undermining facts could be known [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: The 'defeasibility' approach says that having knowledge requires, in addition to justified true belief, there being no true information which, if learned, would result in the person in question no longer being justified in believing the claim. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an externalist view, since it depends on information of which the cognizer may be unaware. A defeater may yet have an undiscovered counter-defeater. The only real defeater is the falsehood of the proposition. |
| 19570 | Reliabilism cannot assess the justification for propositions we don't believe [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: The most serious problem for reliabilism is that it cannot explain adequately the concept of propositional justification, the kind of justification one might have for a proposition one does not believe, or which one disbelieves. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], Notes 2) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand this (though I pass it on anyway). Why can't the reliabilist just offer a critique of the reliability of the justification available for the dubious proposition? |
| 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? |
| 20645 | Heat is a state of vibration, not a substance [Joule] |
| Full Idea: We consider heat not as a substance but as a state of vibration. | |
| From: James Joule (works [1870]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 01 'Nature's' | |
| A reaction: The puzzle is that giving accurate accounts of vibrations, heat and movement require a quantitative substance, energy. But all we have here is movement, and the denial of a substance. Energy is 'nature's currency system'. |
| 20972 | Joule showed that energy converts to heat, and heat to energy [Joule, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: James Joule established the equivalence of heat and mechanical energy, in the sense of showing that a specific amount of heat will always be produced by the expenditure of a given amount of energy, and vice versa. | |
| From: report of James Joule (works [1870]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness App 4.2 | |
| A reaction: This was a major step towards the law of conservation of energy. |