10 ideas
| 19718 | Indefeasibility does not imply infallibility [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: Infallibility does not follow from indefeasibility. | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'Significance') | |
| A reaction: If very little evidence exists then this could clearly be the case. It is especially true of historical and archaeological evidence. |
| 8824 | No one has defended translational phenomenalism since Ayer in 1940 [Ayer, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: I know of no serious defence of 'translational phenomenalism' since Ayer's in 1940. | |
| From: report of A.J. Ayer (The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge [1940]) by Jaegwon Kim - What is 'naturalized epistemology'? 303-4+n | |
| A reaction: We can think of Ayer as a hero who explored how far extreme empiricism would go. We still have anti-realists who are singing from a revised version of the song-sheet. Personally I am with Russell, that we must embrace the best explanation. |
| 19717 | Can a defeater itself be defeated? [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: Can the original justification of a belief be regained through a successful defeat of a defeater? | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'Defeater-Defs') | |
| A reaction: [Jäger 2005 addresses this] I would have thought the answer is yes. I aspire to coherent justifications, so I don't see justifications as a chain of defeat and counter-defeat, but as collective groups of support and challenge. |
| 19716 | Simple reliabilism can't cope with defeaters of reliably produced beliefs [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: An unmodified reliabilism does not accommodate defeaters, and surely there can be defeaters against reliably produced beliefs? | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'Defeaters') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Bonjour 1980] Reliabilism has plenty of problems anyway, since a generally reliable process can obviously occasionally produce a bad result. 20:20 vision is not perfect vision. Internalist seem to like defeaters. |
| 19715 | You can 'rebut' previous beliefs, 'undercut' the power of evidence, or 'reason-defeat' the truth [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: There are 'rebutting' defeaters against the truth of a previously justified belief, 'undercutting' defeaters against the power of the evidence, and 'reason-defeating' defeaters against the truth of the reason for the belief. | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'How') | |
| A reaction: That is (I think) that you can defeat the background, the likelihood, or the truth. He cites Pollock 1986, and implies that these are standard distinctions about defeaters. |
| 19713 | Defeasibility theory needs to exclude defeaters which are true but misleading [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: Advocates of the defeasibility theory have tried to exclude true pieces of information that are misleading defeaters. | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'What') | |
| A reaction: He gives as an example the genuine news of a claim that the suspect has a twin. |
| 19714 | Knowledge requires that there are no facts which would defeat its justification [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: The 'defeasibility theory' of knowledge claims that knowledge is only present if there are no facts that - if they were known - would be genuine defeaters of the relevant justification. | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'What') | |
| A reaction: Something not right here. A genuine defeater would ensure the proposition was false, so it would simply fail the truth test. So we need a 'defeater' for a truth, which must therefore by definition be misleading. Many qualifications have to be invoked. |
| 19719 | 'Moderate' foundationalism has basic justification which is defeasible [Grundmann] |
| Full Idea: Theories that combine basic justification with the defeasibility of this justification are referred to as 'moderate' foundationalism. | |
| From: Thomas Grundmann (Defeasibility Theory [2011], 'Significance') | |
| A reaction: I could be more sympathetic to this sort of foundationalism. But it begins to sound more like Neurath's boat (see Quine) than like Descartes' metaphor of building foundations. |
| 16764 | The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus] |
| Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted. | |
| From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5 | |
| A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763. |
| 15251 | The attribution of necessity to causation is either primitive animism, or confusion with logical necessity [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: How are we to explain the word 'must' [about causation]? The answer is, I think, that it is either a relic of animism, or else reveals an inclination to treat causal connexion as if it were a form of logical necessity. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge [1940], IV.18) | |
| A reaction: The animism proposal just about makes sense (as a primitive feature of minds), but why would anyone, if they had the time and understanding, dream of treating a regular connection as a 'logical' necessity? |