20 ideas
| 9271 | Human knowledge may not produce well-being; the examined life may not be worth living [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Human knowledge is one thing, human well-being another. There is no predetermined harmony between the two. The examined life may not be worth living. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 1.9) | |
| A reaction: John Gray has set himself up as the Eeyore of modern times, but this point may obviously be correct. Presumably Socrates meant that the examined life was better even if the result was less 'well-being'. Even Gray doesn't want a lobotomy. |
| 8868 | 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. |
| 13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The whole of quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Quine offers an interesting qualification to this crushing remark in Idea 13590. The point is that objects must retain their identity in modal contexts, as if I say 'John Kennedy might have been Richard Nixon'. What could that mean? |
| 13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The notion of essence makes sense in context. Relative to a particular enquiry, some predicates may play a more basic role than others, or may apply more fixedly; and these may be treated as essential. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Quine has got a bad press on essentialism, and on modal logic, but I take this point seriously. If you give something a fixed identity by means of essence in some context, you can then go ahead and apply possible world reasoning in that context. |
| 8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of necessity makes sense to me only relative to context. Typically it is applied to what is assumed in an inquiry, as against what has yet to transpire. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Lots of things are assumed by an inquiry without an assumption that they must be true. Quine is the greatest opponent of necessity in all of philosophy. Asserting necessities, though, is too much fun to give up. It would ruin philosophy. |
| 13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Talk of possible worlds is a graphic way of waging the essentialist philosophy, but it is only that; it is not an explication. Essence is needed to identify an object from one possible world to another. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.118) | |
| A reaction: He makes the proposal sound circular, but I take a commitment to essences to be prior to talk of possible worlds. Possible worlds are a tool for clarifying modalities, not for clarifying essential identities. |
| 13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A rigid designator differs from others in that it picks out its object by essential traits. It designates the object in all possible worlds in which it exists. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.118) | |
| A reaction: This states the point more clearly than Kripke ever does, and I presume it is right. Thus when we say that we wish 'our' Hubert Humphrey had won the election, we can allow that his victory elation would change him a bit. Kripke is right. |
| 13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Beliefs have been ascribed to machines, in support of a mechanistic philosophy, and I share this attitude. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.123) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Raymond Nelson] One suspects that this is Quine's latent behaviourism speaking. It strikes me as a crass misuse of 'belief' to ascribe it to a simple machine like a thermostat. |
| 8867 | 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. |
| 9275 | Knowledge does not need minds or nervous systems; it is found in all living things [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge does not need minds, or even nervous systems. It is found in all living things. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: I consider it a misnomer to call such things 'knowledge', for which I have much higher standards. Gray is talking about 'information'. Knowledge needs reasons, and possibility of error, not just anticipatory behaviour. |
| 10347 | 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. |
| 8866 | 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. |
| 10346 | 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. |
| 9276 | The will hardly ever does anything; most of our life just happens to us [Gray] |
| Full Idea: We think our actions express our decisions, but in nearly all of our life, willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, by deciding to do so. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.12) | |
| A reaction: Gray's point does not rule out occasional total control over mental life, but his point is important. The traditional picture is of a life controlled, so the will is seen as at the centre of a person, but it just isn't the case. |
| 8870 | 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? |
| 8869 | 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. |
| 9278 | Nowadays we identify the free life with the good life [Gray] |
| Full Idea: We do not value freedom more than people did in earlier times, but we have identified the good life with the chosen life. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 3.13) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. This is Enlightenment liberalism gradually filtering down into common consciousness, especially via the hegemony of American culture. I sympathise the Gray; don't get me wrong, but I think freedom is overrated. |
| 9280 | Over forty percent of the Earth's living tissue is human [Gray] |
| Full Idea: Humans co-opt over forty per cent of the Earth's living tissue. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.15) | |
| A reaction: If you add our domestic animals, I understand that the figure goes up to 95 per cent! I take this to be virtually the only significant ecological fact - population, population, population. Why are there so many cars? So many carbon footprints? |
| 9279 | What was our original sin, and how could Christ's suffering redeem it? [Gray] |
| Full Idea: No one can say what was humankind's original sin, and no one understands how the suffering of Christ can redeem it. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This nicely articulates a problem that has half bothered me, but I have never put into words. I always assumed Eve committed the sin, and Adam cops the blame for not controlling his woman. Dying for our sins has always puzzled me. |
| 9272 | Without Christianity we lose the idea that human history has a meaning [Gray] |
| Full Idea: For Christians, it is because they occur in history that the lives of humans have a meaning that the lives of other animals do not. ..If we truly leave Christianity behind, we must give up the idea that human history has a meaning. | |
| From: John Gray (Straw Dogs [2002], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Compare the dispute between 'whig' and 'tory' historians, the former of whom believe that history is going somewhere. |