13 ideas
19090 | If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty] |
Full Idea: If we cannot check our language against non-linguistic awareness, then philosophy can never be more than a discussion of the utility and compatibility of beliefs - and, more particularly, of the various vocabularies in which those beliefs are formulated. | |
From: Richard Rorty (Brandom on Social Practices and Representations [1998], iii.127), quoted by Danielle Macbeth - Pragmatism and Objective Truth p.178 | |
A reaction: I'm amazed at how many people I encounter in philosophy circles (compared with none at all outside those circles) who seem to think that we cannot check our language against our non-linguistic awareness. Rorty is their guru. Weird. |
6782 | Realism is the only philosophy of science that doesn't make the success of science a miracle [Putnam] |
Full Idea: Realism….is the only philosophy science which does not make the success of science a miracle. | |
From: Hilary Putnam (works [1980]), quoted by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.4 | |
A reaction: This was from his earlier work; he became more pragmatist and anti-realist later. Personally I approve of the remark. The philosophy of science must certainly offer an explanation for its success. Truth seems the obvious explanation. |
8877 | We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Coherence involves the logical, explanatory and probabilistic relations among one's beliefs, but it could not do to attain a tightly iterrelated system by lopping off whatever beliefs refuse to fit. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.4) | |
A reaction: This is clearly right, so the coherentist has to distinguish between lopping off a belief because it is inconvenient (fundamentalists rejecting textual contradictions), and lopping it off because it is wrong (chemists rejecting phlogiston). |
8884 | The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa] |
Full Idea: You could detect the absence of an eleven-dot pattern without having counted the dots, so your phenomenal concept of that array is not an arithmetical concept, and its content will not yield that its dots do indeed number eleven. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
A reaction: Sosa is discussing foundational epistemology, but this draws attention to the gulf that has to be leaped by structuralists. If eleven is not derived from the pattern, where does it come from? Presumably two eleven-dotters are needed, to map them. |
22181 | Putnam says anti-realism is a bad explanation of accurate predictions [Putnam, by Okasha] |
Full Idea: Putnam's 'no miracle' argument says that being an anti-realist is akin to believing in miracles (because of the accurate predictons). …It is a plausibility argument - an inference to the best explanation. | |
From: report of Hilary Putnam (works [1980]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 4 | |
A reaction: [not sure of ref] Putnam later backs off from this argument, but my personal realism rests on best explanation. Does anyone want to prefer an inferior explanation? The objection is that successful theories can turn out to be false. Phlogiston, ether. |
8878 | It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa] |
Full Idea: I am quite flexible on epistemic terminology, and am even willing to grant that a supermarket door can 'know' that someone is approaching. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
A reaction: I take this amazing admission to be a hallmark of externalism. Sosa must extend this to thermostats. So flowers know the sun has come out. This is knowledge without belief. Could the door ever be 'wrong'? |
8880 | In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa] |
Full Idea: In trying to reduce arithmetic to self-evident logical axioms, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7) | |
A reaction: I have heard Frege called "the greatest of all rationalist philosophers". However, the apparent reduction of arithmetic to analytic truths played into the hands of logical positivists, who could then marginalise arithmetic. |
8881 | Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Almost nothing that one knows of history or geography or science has adequate sensory support, present or even recalled. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.7) | |
A reaction: This seems a bit glib, and may be false. The main issue to which this refers is, of course, induction, which (almost by definition) is a supposedly empirical process which goes beyond the empirical evidence. |
8882 | Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa] |
Full Idea: There is a difference between having just an indexical concept which one can apply to a perceptual characteristic (just saying 'this is thus'), and having a thicker perceptual concept of that characteristic. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.2) | |
A reaction: Both of these, of course, would precede any categorial concepts that enabled one to identify the characteristic or the object. This is a ladder foundationalists must climb if they are to reach the cellar of basic beliefs. |
8883 | Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Are foundationally justified beliefs perhaps those that result from attending to our experience and to features of it or in it? | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.3) | |
A reaction: A promising suggestion. I do think our ideas acquire a different epistmological status once we have given them our full attention, though is that merely full consciousness, or full thoughtful evaluation? The latter I take to be what matters. Cf Idea 2414. |
8885 | Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Some intrinsic features of our thoughts are attributable to them directly, or foundationally, while others are attributable only based on counting or inference. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 7.5) | |
A reaction: In practice the brain combines the two at a speed which makes the distinction impossible. I'll show you ten dot-patterns: you pick out the sixer. The foundationalist problem is that only those drained of meaning could be foundational. |
8876 | Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa] |
Full Idea: Much of our propositional knowledge is not easily formulable, as when a witness looking at a police lineup may know what the culprit's face looks like. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.1) | |
A reaction: This is actually a very helpful defence of foundationalism, because it shows that we will accept perceptual experiences as knowledge when they are not expressed as explicit propositions. Davidson (Idea 8801), for example, must deal with this difficulty. |
8879 | Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa] |
Full Idea: One's beliefs can be comprehensively coherent without amounting to knowledge. | |
From: Ernest Sosa (Beyond internal Foundations to external Virtues [2003], 6.6) | |
A reaction: Beliefs that are fully foundational or reliably sourced may also fail to be knowledge. I take it that any epistemological theory must be fallibilist (Idea 6898). Rational coherentism will clearly be sensitive to error. |