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All the ideas for 'Three Varieties of Knowledge', 'Noneism or Allism?' and 'Rationality and Logic'

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39 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 6. Logical Analysis
Frege's logical approach dominates the analytical tradition [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Pure logic constantly controls Frege's philosophy, and in turn Frege's logically oriented philosophy constantly controls the analytic tradition.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 1.1)
     A reaction: Hanna seeks to reintroduce the dreaded psychological aspect of logic, and I say 'good for him'.
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
Scientism says most knowledge comes from the exact sciences [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Scientism says that the exact sciences are the leading sources of knowledge about the world.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 1.2)
     A reaction: I almost agree, but I would describe the exact sciences as the chief 'evidence' for our knowledge, with the chief 'source' being our own ability to make coherent sense of the evidence. Exact sciences rest on mathematics.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
Objective truth arises from interpersonal communication [Davidson]
     Full Idea: The source of the concept of objective truth is interpersonal communication.
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209)
     A reaction: This is a distinctively Davidsonian idea, arising out of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. We could go a step further, and just say that 'objectivity is a social concept'. Davidson more or less pleads guilty to pragmatism in this essay.
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 1. Fallacy
'Denying the antecedent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ¬φ, so ¬ψ [Hanna]
     Full Idea: The fallacy of 'denying the antecedent' is of the form φ→ψ, ¬φ, so ¬ψ.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 5.4)
'Affirming the consequent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ψ, so φ [Hanna]
     Full Idea: The fallacy of 'affirming the consequent' is of the form φ→ψ, ψ, so φ.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 5.4)
We can list at least fourteen informal fallacies [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Informal fallacies: appeals to force, circumstantial factors, ignorance, pity, popular consensus, authority, generalisation, confused causes, begging the question, complex questions, irrelevance, equivocation, black-and-white, slippery slope etc.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 7.3)
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 4. Circularity
Circular arguments are formally valid, though informally inadmissible [Hanna]
     Full Idea: A circular argument - one whose conclusion is to be found among its premises - is inadmissible in most informal contexts, even though it is formally valid.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 2.1)
     A reaction: Presumably this is a matter of conversational implicature - that you are under a conventional obligation to say things which go somewhere, rather than circling around their starting place.
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 5. Fallacy of Composition
Formally, composition and division fallacies occur in mereology [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Informal fallacies of composition and division go over into formal fallacies of mereological logic.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 7.3)
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic
Logic is explanatorily and ontologically dependent on rational animals [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Logic is explanatorily and ontologically dependent on rational animals.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 1.6)
     A reaction: This is a splendid defiance of the standard Fregean view of logic as having an inner validity of its own, having nothing to do with the psychology of thinkers. But if Hanna is right, why does logical consequence seem to be necessary?
Logic is personal and variable, but it has a universal core [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Beyond an innate and thus universally share protologic, each reasoner's mental logic is only more or less similar to the mental logic of any other reasoner.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 5.7)
     A reaction: This is the main thesis of Hanna's book. I like the combination of this idea with Stephen Read's remark that each student should work out a personal logic which has their own private endorsement.
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 1. Logical Consequence
Intensional consequence is based on the content of the concepts [Hanna]
     Full Idea: In intensional logic the consequence relation is based on the form or content of the concepts or properties expressed by the predicates.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 2.2)
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
We can quantify over fictions by quantifying for real over their names [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Substitutionalists simulate quantification over fictional characters by quantifying for real over fictional names.
     From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.159)
     A reaction: I would say that a fiction is a file of conceptual information, identified by a label. The label brings baggage with it, and there is no existence in the label.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 7. Unorthodox Quantification
We could quantify over impossible objects - as bundles of properties [Lewis]
     Full Idea: We can quantify over Meinongian objects by quantifying for real over property bundles (such as the bundle of roundness and squareness).
     From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.159)
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / d. Logicism critique
Logicism struggles because there is no decent theory of analyticity [Hanna]
     Full Idea: All versions of the thesis that arithmetic is reducible to logic remain questionable as long as no good theory of analyticity is available.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 2.4)
     A reaction: He rejects the attempts by Frege, Wittgenstein and Carnap to provide a theory of analyticity.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
'Allists' embrace the existence of all controversial entities; 'noneists' reject all but the obvious ones [Lewis]
     Full Idea: An expansive friend of the controversial entities who says they all exist may be called an 'allist'; a tough desert-dweller who says that none of them exist may be called a 'noneist'.
     From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.152)
     A reaction: Lewis gives examples of the obvious and the controversial entities. Lewis implies that he himself is in between. The word 'desert' is a reference to Quine.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
We can't accept a use of 'existence' that says only some of the things there are actually exist [Lewis]
     Full Idea: If 'existence' is understood so that it can be a substantive thesis that only some of the things there are exist, we will have none of it.
     From: David Lewis (Noneism or Allism? [1990], p.163)
     A reaction: Lewis is a strong advocate, following Quine, of the univocal sense of the word 'exist', and I agree with them.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / b. Types of supervenience
Supervenience can add covariation, upward dependence, and nomological connection [Hanna]
     Full Idea: 'Strong supervenience' involves necessary covariation of the properties, and upward dependence of higher level on lower level. ...If we add a nomological connection between the two, then we have 'superdupervenience'.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 1.2)
     A reaction: [compressed] Very helpful. A superdupervenient relationship between mind and brain would be rather baffling if they were not essentially the same thing. (which is what I take them to be).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
A sentence is necessary if it is true in a set of worlds, and nonfalse in the other worlds [Hanna]
     Full Idea: On my view, necessity is the truth of a sentence in every member of a set of possible worlds, together with its nonfalsity in every other possible worlds.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.6)
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
Metaphysical necessity can be 'weak' (same as logical) and 'strong' (based on essences) [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Weak metaphysical necessity is either over the set of all logically possible worlds (in which case it is the same as logical necessity), or it is of a smaller set of worlds, and is determined by the underlying essence or nature of the actual world.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.6)
     A reaction: I take the first to be of no interest, as I have no interest in a world which is somehow rated as logically possible, but is not naturally possible. The second type should the principle aim of all human cognitive enquiry. The strong version is synthetic.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
Logical necessity is truth in all logically possible worlds, because of laws and concepts [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Logical necessity is the truth of a sentence by virtue of logical laws or intrinsic conceptual connections alone, and thus true in all logically possible worlds. Put in traditional terms, logical necessity is analyticity.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.6)
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
Nomological necessity is truth in all logically possible worlds with our laws [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Physical or nomological necessity is the truth of a sentence in all logically possible worlds governed by our actual laws of nature.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.6)
     A reaction: Personally I think 'natural necessity' is the best label for this, as it avoids firm commitment to reductive physicalism, and it also avoids commitment to actual necessitating laws.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / e. Belief holism
A belief requires understanding the distinctions of true-and-false, and appearance-and-reality [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Having a belief demands in addition appreciating the contrast between true belief and false, between appearance and reality, mere seeming and being.
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.209)
     A reaction: This sets the bar very high for belief (never mind knowledge), and seems to imply that animals don't have beliefs. How should we describe their cognitive states then? I would say these criteria only apply to actual knowledge.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Intuition includes apriority, clarity, modality, authority, fallibility and no inferences [Hanna]
     Full Idea: The nine features of intuition are: a mental act, apriority, content-comprehensiveness, clarity and distinctness, strict-modality-attributivity, authoritativeness,noninferentiality, cognitive indispensability, and fallibility.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.4)
     A reaction: [See Hanna for a full explanation of this lot] Seems like a good stab at it. Note the trade-off between authority and fallibility.
Intuition is more like memory, imagination or understanding, than like perception [Hanna]
     Full Idea: There is no reason why intuition should be cognitively analogous not to sense perception but instead to either memory, imagination, or conceptual understanding.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.5)
     A reaction: It is Russell's spotting the analogy with memory that made me come to believe that a priori knowledge is possible, as long as we accept it as being fallible. [Hanna has a good discussion of intuition; he votes for the imagination analogy]
Intuition is only outside the 'space of reasons' if all reasons are inferential [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Intuition is outside the 'space of reasons' if we assume that all reasons are inferential, but inside if we assume that reasons need not always be inferential.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.4)
     A reaction: I take it that intuition can be firmly inside the space of reasons, and that not all reasons are inferential.
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
Objectivity is intersubjectivity [Davidson]
     Full Idea: An entity is objective in so far as it is intersubjective.
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]), quoted by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.10
     A reaction: This thought baffled me until I saw it in the context of socialised epistemology. Effectively objectivity is subsumed under justification, which in turn is seen in a social context, not private to individuals.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Explanatory reduction is stronger than ontological reduction [Hanna]
     Full Idea: As standardly construed, reduction can be either explanatory or ontological. Explanatory reduction is the strongest sort of reduction. ...Ontological reduction can still have an 'explanatory gap'.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 1.1)
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / b. Scepticism of other minds
If we know other minds through behaviour, but not our own, we should assume they aren't like me [Davidson]
     Full Idea: If the mental states of others are known only through their behavioral and other outward manifestations, while this is not true of our own mental states, why should we think our own mental states are anything like those of others?
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.207)
     A reaction: His point is that if you seriously doubt other minds, you should follow through on the implications. But that is to treat it as a theory about other minds, rather an a sceptical worry. Descartes didn't walk into walls while writing Meditation 1.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
Knowing other minds rests on knowing both one's own mind and the external world [Davidson, by Dummett]
     Full Idea: Davidson argues that knowledge of other minds presupposes knowledge of one's own mind, and that there is no knowledge of other minds without knowledge of the external world.
     From: report of Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991]) by Michael Dummett - Common Sense and Physics Ch.10
     A reaction: Davidson't argument is actually hard to swallow because it is so long and complex. Compressing the point makes it begin to sound like a variant of the argument from analogy.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Imagination grasps abstracta, generates images, and has its own correctness conditions [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Three features of imagination are that its objects can be abstract, that it generates spatial images directly available to introspection, and its correctness conditions are not based on either efficacious causation or effective tracking.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.6)
     A reaction: Hanna makes the imagination faculty central to our grasp of his proto-logic.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Should we take the 'depictivist' or the 'descriptivist/propositionalist' view of mental imagery? [Hanna]
     Full Idea: In the debate in cognitive science on the nature of mental imagery, there is a 'depictivist' side (Johnson-Laird, Kosslyn, Shepard - good images are isomorphic), and a 'descriptivist' or 'propositionalist' side (Pylyshyn and others).
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 6.6)
     A reaction: Hanna votes firmly in favour of the first view, and implies that they have more or less won the debate.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
Rational animals have a normative concept of necessity [Hanna]
     Full Idea: A rational animal is one that is a normative-reflective possessor of the concepts of necessity, certainty and unconditional obligation.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 4.0)
     A reaction: The addition of obligation shows the Kantian roots of this. It isn't enough just to possess a few concepts. You wouldn't count as rational if you didn't desire truth, as well as understanding it. Robots be warned.
One tradition says talking is the essence of rationality; the other says the essence is logic [Hanna]
     Full Idea: In the tradition of Descartes, Chomsky and Davidson, rational animals are essentially talking animals. But in the view of Kant, and perhaps Fodor, it is the cognitive capacity for logic that is the essence of human rationality.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], 4.9)
Hegelian holistic rationality is the capacity to seek coherence [Hanna]
     Full Idea: The 'holistic' (Hegelian) sense of rationality means the capacity for systematically seeking coherence (or 'reflective equilibrium') across a network or web of beliefs, desires, emotions, intentions and volitions. Traditionally 'the truth is the whole'.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: On the whole this is my preferred view (which sounds Quinean as well as Hegelian), though I reject the notion that truth is a whole. I take coherence to be the hallmark of justification, though not of truth, and reason aims to justify.
Humean Instrumental rationality is the capacity to seek contingent truths [Hanna]
     Full Idea: The 'instrumental' (Humean) sense of rationality means a capacity for generating or recognizing contingent truths, contextually normative rules, consequentialist obligations, and hypothetical 'ought' claims. Reason is 'the slave of the passions'.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], Intro)
Kantian principled rationality is recognition of a priori universal truths [Hanna]
     Full Idea: The 'principled' (Kantian) sense of rationality means the possession of a capacity for generating or recognizing necessary truths, a priori beliefs, strictly universal normative rules, nonconsequentialist moral obligations, and categorical 'ought' claims.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], Intro)
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 1. Psychology
Most psychologists are now cognitivists [Hanna]
     Full Idea: Most psychologists have now dropped behaviourism and adopted cognitivism: the thesis that the rational human mind is essentially an active innately specified information-processor.
     From: Robert Hanna (Rationality and Logic [2006], Intro)
19. Language / F. Communication / 4. Private Language
Content of thought is established through communication, so knowledge needs other minds [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Until a baseline has been established by communication with someone else, there is no point is saying one's own thoughts have a propositional content. Hence knowledge of another mind is essential all thought and all knowledge.
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.213)
     A reaction: This really is building a skyscraper on the slightly shaky claims of the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). Animals are so important in discussions of this kind. Is an albatross more or less devoid of thought and belief?
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / c. Principle of charity
The principle of charity attributes largely consistent logic and largely true beliefs to speakers [Davidson]
     Full Idea: Concerning charity, the Principle of Coherence seeks logical consistency in the thought of the speaker, and the Principle of Correspondence seeks a similar response to features of the world to that of an interpreter. The speaker has logic and true belief.
     From: Donald Davidson (Three Varieties of Knowledge [1991], p.211)
     A reaction: Davidson adds a Kantian commitment to pure and universal reason to the very sceptical framework created by Quine. I agree with Davidson, but it seems more like faith than like an argument or an empirical observation.