Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Knowledge and its Limits' and 'The Nature of Thought'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

5 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence

2764	Full coherence might involve consistency and mutual entailment of all propositions [Blanshard, by Dancy,J]
	Full Idea: Blanshard says that in a fully coherent system there would not only be consistency, but every proposition would be entailed by the others, and no proposition would stand outside the system.
	From: report of Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought [1939], 2:265) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 8.1
	A reaction: Hm. If a proposition is entailed by the others, then it is a necessary truth (given the others) which sounds deterministic. You could predict all the truths you had never encountered. See 1578:178 for quote.

3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth

19080	Coherence tests for truth without implying correspondence, so truth is not correspondence [Blanshard, by Young,JO]
	Full Idea: Blanshard said that coherent justification leads to coherence truth. It might be said that coherence is a test for truth, but truth is correspondence. But coherence doesn't guarantee correspondence, and coherence is a test, so truth is not correspondence.
	From: report of Brand Blanshard (The Nature of Thought [1939], Ch.26) by James O. Young - The Coherence Theory of Truth §2.2
	A reaction: [compression of Young's summary] Rescher (1973) says that Blanshard's argument depends on coherence being an infallible test for truth, which it isn't.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs

4760	Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson]
	Full Idea: Knowing is the best kind of believing. Mere believing is a kind of botched knowing. In short, belief aims at knowledge (not just truth).
	From: Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000], §1.5)
	A reaction: The difference between aiming at truth and aiming at knowledge has to be in the justificiation, so beliefs aim to be justified. Believers always aim at truth, but they can be strikingly relaxed about justification.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First

19512	Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose]
	Full Idea: Williamson says that instead of being viewed as a concept to be analysed, knowledge should be seen as something useful in the analysis of all sorts of other concepts to epistemology - and to philosophy of mind as well.
	From: report of Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000]) by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.8
	A reaction: I just don't believe this, because knowledge is obviously a complex state of mind, which invites breaking it down into ingredients. How could knowledge possibly be prior to truth?

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

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.