9 ideas
| 23367 | Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason. | |
| From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15) | |
| A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!). |
| 20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely. |
| 20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'. |
| 20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding. |
| 19727 | Reliabilist knowledge is evidence based belief, with high conditional probability [Comesaņa] |
| Full Idea: The best definition of reliabilism seems to be: the agent has evidence, and bases the belief on the evidence, and the actual conditional reliability of the belief on the evidence is high enough. | |
| From: Juan Comesaņa (Reliabilism [2011], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: This is Comesaņa's own theory, derived from Alston 1998, and based on conditional probabilities. |
| 19725 | In a sceptical scenario belief formation is unreliable, so no beliefs at all are justified? [Comesaņa] |
| Full Idea: If the processes of belief-formation are unreliable (perhaps in a sceptical scenario), then reliabilism has the consequence that those victims can never have justified beliefs (which Sosa calls the 'new evil demon problem'). | |
| From: Juan Comesaņa (Reliabilism [2011], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: That may be the right outcome. Could you have mathematical knowledge in a sceptical scenario? But that would be different processes. If I might be a brain in a vat, then it's true that I have no perceptual knowledge. |
| 19726 | How do we decide which exact process is the one that needs to be reliable? [Comesaņa] |
| Full Idea: The reliabilist has the problem of finding a principled way of selecting, for each token-process of belief formation, the type whose reliability ratio must be high enough for the belief to be justified. | |
| From: Juan Comesaņa (Reliabilism [2011], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: The question is which exact process I am employing for some visual knowledge (and how the process should be described). Seeing, staring, squinting, glancing.... This seems to be called the 'generality problem'. |
| 20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: In contrast to the other animals, man has cultivated an abundance of contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this synthesis, he is master of the earth. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §966) | |
| A reaction: If this is true, it presents the fundamental challenge of politicial philosophy - to visual a successful social system for a creature which does not have a clear and focused nature. For Nietzsche, this 'synthesis' continually evolves. |
| 20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux, and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §112) | |
| A reaction: Maybe we do see it as a continuum? The racket swings and the ball is propelled, but the contact is a unity, not two separate events. |