8 ideas
| 9283 | Our ancient beliefs can never be overthrown by subtle arguments [Euripides] |
| Full Idea: Teiresias: We have no use for theological subtleties./ The beliefs we have inherited, as old as time,/ Cannot be overthrown by any argument,/ Nor by the most inventive ingenuity. | |
| From: Euripides (The Bacchae [c.407 BCE], 201) | |
| A reaction: [trans. Philip Vellacott (Penguin)] Compare Idea 8243. While very conservative societies have amazing resilience in maintaining traditional beliefs, modern culture eats into them, not directly by argument, but by arguments at fifth remove. |
| 6950 | You can be rational with undetected or minor inconsistencies [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Rationality doesn't require consistency, because you can be rational despite undetected inconsistencies in beliefs, and it isn't always rational to respond to a discovery of inconsistency by dropping everything in favour of eliminating that inconsistency. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Rationality [1995], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being correct, and is (I am beginning to realise) a vital contribution made to our understanding by pragmatism. European thinking has been too keen on logic as the model of good reasoning. |
| 6954 | A coherent conceptual scheme contains best explanations of most of your beliefs [Harman] |
| Full Idea: A set of unrelated beliefs seems less coherent than a tightly organized conceptual scheme that contains explanatory principles that make sense of most of your beliefs; this is why inference to the best explanation is an attractive pattern of inference. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Rationality [1995], 1.5.2) | |
| A reaction: I find this a very appealing proposal. The central aim of rational thought seems to me to be best explanation, and I increasingly think that most of my beliefs rest on their apparent coherence, rather than their foundations. |
| 6955 | Enumerative induction is inference to the best explanation [Harman] |
| Full Idea: We might think of enumerative induction as inference to the best explanation, taking the generalization to explain its instances. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Rationality [1995], 1.5.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a helpful connection. The best explanation of these swans being white is that all swans are white; it ceased to be the best explanation when black swans turned up. In the ultimate case, a law of nature is the explanation. |
| 6952 | Induction is 'defeasible', since additional information can invalidate it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: It is sometimes said that inductive reasoning is 'defeasible', meaning that considerations that support a given conclusion can be defeated by additional information. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Rationality [1995], 1.4.5) | |
| A reaction: True. The point is that being defeasible does not prevent such thinking from being rational. The rational part of it is to acknowledge that your conclusion is defeasible. |
| 6953 | All reasoning is inductive, and deduction only concerns implication [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Deductive logic is concerned with deductive implication, not deductive reasoning; all reasoning is inductive | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Rationality [1995], 1.4.5) | |
| A reaction: This may be an attempt to stipulate how the word 'reasoning' should be used in future. It is, though, a bold and interesting claim, given the reputation of induction (since Hume) of being a totally irrational process. |
| 6951 | Ordinary rationality is conservative, starting from where your beliefs currently are [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Ordinary rationality is generally conservative, in the sense that you start from where you are, with your present beliefs and intentions. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Rationality [1995], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: This stands opposed to the Cartesian or philosophers' rationality, which requires that (where possible) everything be proved from scratch. Harman seems right, that the normal onus of proof is on changing beliefs, rather proving you should retain them. |
| 8120 | Objects can be beautiful which express nothing at all, such as the rainbow [Herbart, by Tolstoy] |
| Full Idea: Objects are often beautiful which express nothing at all, as, for instance, the rainbow, which is beautiful for its lines and colours and not for its mythological connexion with Iris, or Noah's rainbow. | |
| From: report of Johann Herbart (works [1830]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice counterexample to Tolstoy's own theory. The example is one of a natural beauty, but it would be harder to find examples in human art. How much the artist may feel, though, has little to do with the success of a work of art. |