9 ideas
8797 | The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If I have a headache, I could have a set of beliefs that I do not have a headache, that I am not in pain, that no one is in pain, and so on. The resulting system of beliefs would cohere as fully as does my actual system of beliefs. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §9) | |
A reaction: I think this is a misunderstanding of coherentism. Beliefs are not to be formulated through a process of coherence, but are evaluated that way. A belief that I have headache just arrives; I then see that its denial is incoherent, so I accept it. |
14794 | Instead of seeking Truth, we should seek belief that is beyond doubt [Peirce] |
Full Idea: Your problems would be greatly simplified, if, instead of saying that you want to know the Truth, you were simply to say that you want to attain a state of belief unassailable beyond doubt. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Essentials of Pragmatism [1905], I) | |
A reaction: This is not the same as saying that belief beyond doubt IS truth. He is merely offering a strategy for scientists to side-step the sort of scepticism raised by Descartes and radical empiricists. |
8794 | There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Radical foundationalism suffers from two weaknesses: there are not so many perfectly obvious truths as Descartes thought; and if we restrict ourselves to what it truly obvious, very little supposed common sense knowledge can be proved. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §3) | |
A reaction: It is striking how few examples can ever be found of self-evident a priori truths. However, if there are self-evident truths about direct experience (pace Descartes), that would give us more than enough. |
8796 | A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa] |
Full Idea: A single belief can trail at once regresses of both sorts: one terminating and one not. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §6) | |
A reaction: This makes foundationalism possible, while admitting the existence of regresses. It is a good point, and triumphalist anti-foundationalists can't just point out a regress and then smugly troop off to the pub. |
8799 | If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If a mental state is not propositional, then how can it possibly serve as a foundation for belief? How can one infer or justify anything on the basis of a state that, having no propositional content, must be logically dumb? | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §11) | |
A reaction: This may be the best objection to foundationalism. McDowell tries to argue that conceptual content is inherent in perception, thus giving the beginnings of inbuilt propositional content. But an organism awash with bare experiences knows nothing. |
8795 | Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa] |
Full Idea: If a mental state provides no guarantee against error, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §4) | |
A reaction: That assumes that knowledge entails certainty, which I am sure it should not. On a fallibilist account, a foundation could be incredibly secure, despite a barely imaginable scenario in which it turned out to be false. |
8798 | Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Visual experience is recognized as both the cause and the justification of our visual beliefs. But these are not wholly independent. Presumably the justification that something is red derives partly from the fact that it originates in visual experience. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §10) | |
A reaction: Yes, but the fact that certain visual experiences originate in dreams is taken as grounds for denying their truth, not affirming it. So why do we distinguish them? I am thinking that only in the 'space of reasons' can a cause become a justification. |
14792 | A 'conception', the rational implication of a word, lies in its bearing upon the conduct of life [Peirce] |
Full Idea: The present writer framed the theory that a 'conception', that is, the rational purport of a word or other expression, lies exclusively in its conceivable bearing upon the conduct of life. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Essentials of Pragmatism [1905], I) |
14793 | The definition of a concept is just its experimental implications [Peirce] |
Full Idea: If one can define accurately all the conceivable experimental phenomena which the affirmation or denial of a concept could imply, one will have therein a complete definition of the concept, and there is absolutely nothing more in it. | |
From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Essentials of Pragmatism [1905], I) | |
A reaction: Strictly, I would have thought you could only affirm or deny a complete proposition, rather than a concept. What should I do with the concept of a 'unicorn'? Note that all theories, such as empiricism or pragmatism, begin with an account of our concepts. |