41 ideas
| 2730 | Because 'gold is malleable' is necessary does not mean that it is analytic [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Taking the proposition that gold is malleable to be necessary does not commit one to considering it analytic. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.116) |
| 2715 | Beliefs are based on perception, memory, introspection or reason [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The four basic kinds of belief are rooted in perception, memory, introspective consciousness, and reason. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], Intr.p.7) |
| 2735 | Could you have a single belief on its own? [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Could one have just a single belief? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.198) |
| 2736 | We can make certain of what we know, so knowing does not entail certainty [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The possibility of making certain of what we already know suggests that knowing a proposition does not entail its being certain. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.220) |
| 2721 | If you gradually remove a book's sensory properties, what is left at the end? [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If you imagine subtracting a book's sensory properties one by one, what is left of it? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.42) |
| 2722 | Sense-data theory is indirect realism, but phenomenalism is direct irrealism [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Where the sense-datum theory is an indirect realism, phenomenalism is a direct irrealism. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.43) |
| 2727 | Red and green being exclusive colours seems to be rationally graspable but not analytic [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The proposition that nothing is red and green all over at once is not analytic, but it is rationally graspable, so it seems to be an a priori synthetic proposition. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.100) |
| 2728 | The concepts needed for a priori thought may come from experience [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: I may well need experience to acquire the concepts needed for knowledge of the a priori, such as the concept of a colour. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.103) |
| 2717 | How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: How could I see a field and believe nothing regarding it? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.20) |
| 2716 | To see something as a field, I obviously need the concept of a field [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The propositional belief which portrays what I see in front of me AS a field requires my having a concept of one. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.17) | |
| A reaction: To me this immediately invites the question of what a cow or horse experiences when they look at a familiar field. They know how to leave and enter it, and register its boundaries and qualities. Concepts? |
| 2719 | Sense data imply representative realism, possibly only representing primary qualities [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: A sense-datum theory might be called a representative realism because it conceives perception as a relation in which sense-data represent perceived external (hence real) objects to us. For Locke they were resemblances only of primary qualities. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.33) |
| 2720 | Sense-data (and the rival 'adverbial' theory) are to explain illusions and hallucinations [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The sense-datum theory is mainly to explain hallucinations and illusions, though there might be other theories, such as the 'adverbial' theory. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.36) |
| 2718 | Perception is first simple, then objectual (with concepts) and then propositional [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Simple perceiving gives rise to objectual perceiving (attaching concepts to the object), which gives rise to propositional perceiving. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], I p.23) |
| 2741 | The principles of justification have to be a priori [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: The crucial principles of justification are a priori. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], X p.311) |
| 2729 | Virtually all rationalists assert that we can have knowledge of synthetic a priori truths [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Rationalists virtually always assert or imply that, in addition to knowledge of analytic truths, there is knowledge of synthetic a priori truths. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], IV p.105) |
| 2725 | To remember something is to know it [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Remembering something is so entails knowing that it is so. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], II p.68) | |
| A reaction: Clearly I can say I "remember" x, but be wrong. Presumably we then say that I didn't really remember, which requires success, like "I know". It is true (as with "know") that as soon as I say that the something is false, I can't claim to remember it. |
| 2724 | I might remember someone I can't recall or image, by recognising them on meeting [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If I can neither recall nor image Jane I can still remember her, for on seeing her I might recognise her, and might remember, and even recall, our last meeting. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], II p.66) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I can hardly claim to remember her if I have no concept of her, and don't recall our last meeting. If seeing her triggers recognition, I would say that I NOW remember her, but I didn't before. Memory is more conscious than Audi claims. |
| 2731 | Justification is either unanchored (infinite or circular), or anchored (in knowledge or non-knowledge) [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: There are four possible kinds of epistemic chain: infinite and unanchored, circular and unanchored, anchored in a belief which is not knowledge, and anchored in a belief which is bedrock knowledge. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.183) | |
| A reaction: About right, though I don't think 'chain' is the right word for what is proposed if justification is to be coherent. The justifications float like lilies in the pond of reason, and a Self (Monet?) seems needed to assess the picture |
| 2739 | Internalism about justification implies that there is a right to believe something [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Internalists about justification tend to conceive of it as a matter of having a right to believe something. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.234) | |
| A reaction: I'm an internalist, but I don't understand this, unless it refers to the social aspect of justification. Can I grant myself internal rights? I can justify my belief to other people. |
| 2732 | Maths may be consistent with observations, but not coherent [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: That 7+5=12 and that carrots are nourishing are mutually consistent, but do not exhibit coherence. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.192) | |
| A reaction: This shows how difficult it would be to define 'coherent'. Is 'carrots are nourishing' coherent with 'fish are nourishing'? Is the battle of Hastings coherent with the battle of Waterloo? |
| 2733 | It is very hard to show how much coherence is needed for justification [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: It is very difficult to specify when an explanatory relation generates enough coherence to create justification. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.193) | |
| A reaction: I take coherence to be the key concept in epistemology, and quite impossible to define. This is why the 'space of reasons' is a useful concept. It is a courtroom, in which each case is different. |
| 2734 | A consistent madman could have a very coherent belief system [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: A schizophrenic who thinks he is Napoleon, if he has a completely consistent story with enough interlocking details, may have a belief system that is superbly coherent. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VII p.194) | |
| A reaction: This is an exaggeration, but the fact is that one isolated lie is totally coherent, so coherence can only emerge when a system is large. Sense experience must be central to coherence. |
| 2738 | Consistent accurate prediction looks like knowledge without justified belief [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If someone consistently prophesied the winners of horse races, it appears that this man knows who will win the races, but surely he does not have justified beliefs as to who will win? | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.229) | |
| A reaction: This is where internalists and externalists (notably reliabilists) sharply part company. IF a reliable clairvoyant appeared, we would eventually accept them as a knower. But they DON'T appear, because knowledge needs justification! |
| 2740 | A reliability theory of knowledge seems to involve truth as correspondence [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: If one favours a reliability theory of knowledge (which is externalist) the correspondence theory of truth seems the most appropriate. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.243) | |
| A reaction: Sounds right. Coherence implies some sort of internal assessment, whereas correspondence just needs to plugged into the facts. I like coherence justification and correspondence truth. |
| 2737 | 'Reliable' is a very imprecise term, and may even mean 'justified' [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: Reliabilism cannot specify how reliable a process must be before it grounds knowledge, and it cannot specify what is reliable in the first place. 'Reliable' may become circular, and may mean 'justified'. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], VIII p.225) | |
| A reaction: The first time you ever read an instrument, or talk to a stranger, you have no indication of reliability. Circularity looks like a big problem. Knowledge must precede reliability? |
| 7621 | Special relativity, unlike general relativity, was operationalist in spirit [Putnam on Einstein] |
| Full Idea: Einstein's interpretation of special relativity was operationalist in spirit (in marked contrast to the interpretation he gave to general relativity). | |
| From: comment on Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: The late twentieth century was polluted with daft relativism, and I hold Einstein partly responsible, suspecting that he was a bad philosopher. The later development of Einstein's view noted here is interesting. |
| 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. |
| 2726 | We can be ignorant about ourselves, for example, our desires and motives [Audi,R] |
| Full Idea: We can have false beliefs, or some degree of ignorance, about our own mental lives. For example, about our own dispositions, such as not believing that we have a certain ignoble desire. | |
| From: Robert Audi (Epistemology: contemporary introduction [1998], III p.83) | |
| A reaction: This idea, that we don't know ourselves, has become a commonplace of recent philosophy, but I am unconvinced. Mostly we know only too well that we harbour a base desire, and we feel a creeping sense of shame. Total ignorance is very rare. |
| 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'. |
| 22955 | Einstein took causation to be the bedrock of physics [Einstein, by Coveney/Highfield] |
| Full Idea: It is difficult to overplay Einstein's commitment to the concept of causality as the bedrock of physics. | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by P Coveney / R Highfield - The Arrow of Time 3 'problem' | |
| A reaction: I normally avoid arguments from authority, but this carries a bit of weight (e.g. when Russell tries to oppose it). What happens to Einstein's theories if you remove causation from them? |
| 20638 | General relativity assumes laws of nature are the same in all frames of reference [Einstein, by Close] |
| Full Idea: Einstein came to general relativity from the principles that the laws of nature are the same in all frames of reference. | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Frank Close - Theories of Everything 5 'Cosmological' | |
| A reaction: I wish physicists would tell us a bit more about the ontological status of the 'laws of nature'. Presumably they are not supernatural, so there is an aspect of nature which is constant in all frames of reference. Explanation please. |
| 20636 | Newton is a special case of Einstein's general theory, with an infinite speed of light [Einstein, by Close] |
| Full Idea: Einstein's general relativity included Newton's theory as a special case: Newton's theory corresponds to the speed of light being infinite relative to the speed of the interacting bodies. | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Frank Close - Theories of Everything 5 'Gravity' | |
| A reaction: So Newton's theory was NOT wrong, but he made the false assumption that the speed of light was infinite. |
| 21230 | The theory is 'special' because it sticks to observers moving straight, at constant speeds [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Einstein's first theory is 'special' because it only deals with observers who move in a straight line at constant speeds with respect to one another. | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man 03 | |
| A reaction: Most theories of this period seem to have focused on the simplest cases, for obvious reasons. |
| 21231 | Assume the speed of light is constant for all observers, and the laws of physics are the same [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Einstein assumed that when each observer measures the speed of light in a vacuum, they find the same value, regardless of their speed; and that measurements will lead to agreement on the laws of physics. | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man 03 | |
| A reaction: So are the laws of physics constant for all observers, irrespective of their speed? |
| 20634 | General Relativity says there is no absolute force or acceleration [Einstein, by Close] |
| Full Idea: Einstein's General Theory arose from the idea that there is no absolute measure of force and acceleration. | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Frank Close - Theories of Everything 5 'Gravity' | |
| A reaction: If absolutely everything is only true relative to something else you wonder what the point of measuring anything is. How big can a 'frame of reference' or 'inertial frame' be. Is the multiverse a frame of reference? |
| 20648 | Mass is a measure of energy content [Einstein] |
| Full Idea: The mass of a body is the measure of its energy content. | |
| From: Albert Einstein (works [1915]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 04 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: If I knew what energy was, this would be very illuminating. This idea is e=mc^2 in words. We now have the Higgs field to consider when trying to understand mass. |
| 21232 | Space-time arises from the connection between measurements of space and of time [Einstein, by Farmelo] |
| Full Idea: Einstein noted that the measurements of space and time are not independent but inextricably linked, leading to the idea of unified space-time (introduced by his former teacher Minkowski). | |
| From: report of Albert Einstein (works [1915]) by Graham Farmelo - The Strangest Man 03 | |
| A reaction: Notice the instrumentalist assumptions behind this. |
| 7626 | I do not believe in a personal God [Einstein] |
| Full Idea: I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. | |
| From: Albert Einstein (works [1915]), quoted by Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion Ch.1.15 | |
| A reaction: This is an important corrective to those who claim Einstein as religious, on the basis of remarks about God not playing dice etc. See the whole of Dawkins's chapter on Einstein for full discussion. |