10 ideas
| 8616 | How can multiple statements, none of which is tenable, conjoin to yield a tenable conclusion? [Elgin] |
| Full Idea: How can multiple statements, none of which is tenable, conjoin to yield a tenable conclusion? How can their relation to other less than tenable enhance their tenability? | |
| From: Catherine Z. Elgin (Non-foundationalist epistemology [2005], p.157) | |
| A reaction: Her example is witnesses to a crime. Bayes Theorem appears to deal with individual items. "The thief had green hair" becomes more likely with multiple testimony. This is a very persuasive first step towards justification as coherence. |
| 8617 | Statements that are consistent, cotenable and supportive are roughly true [Elgin] |
| Full Idea: The best explanation of coherence (where the components of a coherent account must be mutually consistent, cotenable and supportive) is that the account is at least roughly true. | |
| From: Catherine Z. Elgin (Non-foundationalist epistemology [2005], p.158) | |
| A reaction: Note that she is NOT employing a coherence account of truth (which I take to be utterly wrong). It is notoriously difficult to define coherence. If the components must be 'tenable', they have epistemic status apart from their role in coherence. |
| 2614 | Modern phenomenalism holds that objects are logical constructions out of sense-data [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Nowadays phenomenalism is held to be a theory of perception which says that physical objects are logical constructions out of sense-data. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
| 2615 | The concept of sense-data allows us to discuss appearances without worrying about reality [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: The introduction of the term 'sense-datum' is a means of referring to appearances without prejudging the question of what it is, if anything, that they are appearances of. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
| 8618 | Coherence is a justification if truth is its best explanation (not skill in creating fiction) [Elgin] |
| Full Idea: The best explanation of the coherence of 'Middlemarch' lies in the novelist's craft. Coherence conduces to epistemic acceptability only when the best explanation of the coherence of a constellation of claims is that they are (at least roughly) true. | |
| From: Catherine Z. Elgin (Non-foundationalist epistemology [2005], p.160) | |
| A reaction: Yes. This combines my favourite inference to the best explanation (the favourite tool of us realists) with coherence as justification, where coherence can, crucially, have a social dimension. I begin to think this is the correct account of justification. |
| 7658 | Obviously there can't be a functional anaylsis of qualia if they are defined by intrinsic properties [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: If you define qualia as intrinsic properties of experiences considered in isolation from all their causes and effects, logically independent of all dispositional properties, then they are logically guaranteed to elude all broad functional analysis. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: This is a good point - it seems daft to reify qualia and imagine them dangling in mid-air with all their vibrant qualities - but that is a long way from saying there is nothing more to qualia than functional roles. Functions must be exlained too. |
| 7655 | The work done by the 'homunculus in the theatre' must be spread amongst non-conscious agencies [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: All the work done by the imagined homunculus in the Cartesian Theater must be distributed among various lesser agencies in the brain, none of which is conscious. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Dennett's account crucially depends on consciousness being much more fragmentary than most philosophers claim it to be. It is actually full of joints, which can come apart. He may be right. |
| 7657 | Intelligent agents are composed of nested homunculi, of decreasing intelligence, ending in machines [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: As long as your homunculi are more stupid and ignorant than the intelligent agent they compose, the nesting of homunculi within homunculi can be finite, bottoming out, eventually, with agents so unimpressive they can be replaced by machines. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: [Dennett first proposed this in 'Brainstorms' 1978]. This view was developed well by Lycan. I rate it as one of the most illuminating ideas in the modern philosophy of mind. All complex systems (like aeroplanes) have this structure. |
| 7656 | I don't deny consciousness; it just isn't what people think it is [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: I don't maintain, of course, that human consciousness does not exist; I maintain that it is not what people often think it is. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I consider Dennett to be as near as you can get to an eliminativist, but he is not stupid. As far as I can see, the modern philosopher's bogey-man, the true total eliminativist, simply doesn't exist. Eliminativists usually deny propositional attitudes. |
| 7654 | What matters about neuro-science is the discovery of the functional role of the chemistry [Dennett] |
| Full Idea: Neuro-science matters because - and only because - we have discovered that the many different neuromodulators and other chemical messengers that diffuse throughout the brain have functional roles that make important differences. | |
| From: Daniel C. Dennett (Sweet Dreams [2005], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I agree with Dennett that this is the true ground for pessimism about spectacular breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, rather than abstract concerns about irreducible features of the mind like 'qualia' and 'rationality'. |