Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'There is no a Priori' and 'What Does It All Mean?'

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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.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use

4001	The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses as well as its actual ones [Nagel]
	Full Idea: The meaning of a word contains all its possible uses, true and false, not only its actual ones.
	From: Thomas Nagel (What Does It All Mean? [1987], Ch.5)
	A reaction: It has always seemed to me that meaning is not use, because you can't use it if it hasn't already got a meaning. What use is a meaningless word?

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?