10 ideas
21515 | Incoherence may be more important for enquiry than coherence [Olsson] |
Full Idea: While coherence may lack the positive role many have assigned to it, ...incoherence plays an important negative role in our enquiries. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 10.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Peirce as the main source for this idea] We can hardly by deeply impressed by incoherence if we have no sense of coherence. Incoherence is just one of many markers for theory failure. Missing the target, bad concepts... |
21514 | Coherence is the capacity to answer objections [Olsson] |
Full Idea: According to Lehrer, coherence should be understood in terms of the capacity to answer objections. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 9) | |
A reaction: [Keith Lehrer 1990] We can connect this with the Greek requirement of being able to give an account [logos], which is the hallmark of understanding. I take coherence to be the best method of achieving understanding. Any understanding meets Lehrer's test. |
21496 | Mere agreement of testimonies is not enough to make truth very likely [Olsson] |
Full Idea: Far from guaranteeing a high likelihood of truth by itself, testimonial agreement can apparently do so only if the circumstances are favourable as regards independence, prior probability, and individual credibility. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 1) | |
A reaction: This is Olson's main thesis. His targets are C.I.Lewis and Bonjour, who hoped that a mere consensus of evidence would increase verisimilitude. I don't see a problem for coherence in general, since his favourable circumstances are part of it. |
21499 | Coherence is only needed if the information sources are not fully reliable [Olsson] |
Full Idea: An enquirer who is fortunate enough to have at his or her disposal fully reliable information sources has no use for coherence, the need for which arises only in the context of less than fully reliable informations sources. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 2.6.2) | |
A reaction: I take this to be entirely false. How do you assess reliability? 'I've seen it with my own eyes'. Why trust your eyes? In what visibility conditions do you begin to doubt your eyes? Why do rational people mistrust their intuitions? |
21502 | A purely coherent theory cannot be true of the world without some contact with the world [Olsson] |
Full Idea: The Input Objection says a pure coherence theory would seem to allow that a system of beliefs be justified in spite of being utterly out of contact with the world it purports to describe, so long as it is, to a sufficient extent, coherent. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Olson seems impressed by this objection, but I don't see how a system could be coherently about the world if it had no known contact with the world. Olson seems to ignore meta-coherence, which evaluates the status of the system being studied. |
21512 | Extending a system makes it less probable, so extending coherence can't make it more probable [Olsson] |
Full Idea: Any non-trivial extension of a belief system is less probable than the original system, but there are extensions that are more coherent than the original system. Hence more coherence does not imply a higher probability. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 6.4) | |
A reaction: [Olson cites Klein and Warfield 1994; compressed] The example rightly says the extension could have high internal coherence, but not whether the extension is coherent with the system being extended. |
22200 | If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle] |
Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. | |
From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6) | |
A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible. |
7346 | Jeremiah implied a link between weakness and goodness, and the evil of the state [Jeremiah, by Johnson,P] |
Full Idea: Jeremiah was the first to perceive the possibility that powerlessness and goodness were somehow linked; ...he comes close to the notion that the state itself was inherently evil. | |
From: report of Jeremiah (24: Book of Jeremiah [c.570 BCE]) by Paul Johnson - The History of the Jews Pt II | |
A reaction: This looks like the first seeds of the anarchist idea. You abandon the state for something 'higher'. 'Perceive' rather begs the question of whether he is right. This is the full 'inversion of values' of Nietzsche. |
22920 | Do I not fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord [Jeremiah] |
Full Idea: Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? | |
From: Jeremiah (24: Book of Jeremiah [c.570 BCE], 23:24), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 03 'Where' | |
A reaction: If the Lord is omnipresent, then He must be present in each one of us. But does the Lord interact with each of us? |
22089 | Am I a God afar off, and not a God close at hand? [Jeremiah] |
Full Idea: Am I a God afar off, and not a God close at hand? Do I not fill heaven and earth? | |
From: Jeremiah (24: Book of Jeremiah [c.570 BCE], 23:23), quoted by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3 | |
A reaction: I assume this was often quoted by eighteenth century divines, against the rise of deism. |