Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Lectures on the History of Philosophy', 'The Raft and the Pyramid' and 'Necessary Truth'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

21757	Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history [Hegel]
	Full Idea: Philosophy is the supreme blossom - the concept - of the entire shape of history, the consciousness and the spiritual essence of the whole situation, the spirit of the age as the spirit present and aware of itself in thought.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
	A reaction: This sees philosophy as intrinsically historical, which is a founding idea for 'continental' philosophy. Analysis is tied to science, in which the history of the subject is seen as irrelevant to its truth. Does this mean we can't go back to Aristotle?

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

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.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity

4577	There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity [Quine]
	Full Idea: In principle I see no higher or more austere necessity than natural necessity; and in natural necessity, or our attribution of it, I see only Hume's regularities
	From: Willard Quine (Necessary Truth [1963], p.76)
	A reaction: Presumably this allows logical necessity as a 'lower' necessity, but denies 'metaphysical' necessity, in line with Hume and other tough empiricists. Personally I adore metaphysical necessities, but they are a bit hard to establish conclusively.

12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 1. Common Sense

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.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / e. Pro-foundations

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.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique

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.

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 2. Causal Justification

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.