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All the ideas for 'talk', 'An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation' and 'Essence, Necessity and Explanation'

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15 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition
15118 A successful Aristotelian 'definition' is what sciences produces after an investigation [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: My current use of the Aristotelian term 'definition' is intended to correspond to what is typically accessible to a scientist only at the end of a successful investigation into the nature of a particular phenomenon.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1)
     A reaction: It is crucial to understand that Aristotle's definitions could be several hundred pages long. It has nothing to do with dictionary definitions. He proposes 'nominal' and 'real' definitions.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 6. Definition by Essence
15116 Essences cause necessary features, and definitions describe those necessary features [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Since essences cause the other necessary features of a thing, so definitions, as the linguistic correlates of essences, explain, together with other axioms, the propositions describing those necessary features.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1)
     A reaction: This is nice and clear. Definitions are NOT essences - they are the linguistic correlates of essences, and mirror those essences. The necessary features are not the only things needing explanation. That picture is too passive.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
15110 An essence and what merely follow from it are distinct [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: We can distinguish (as Aristotle and Fine do) between what belongs to the essence of an object, and what merely follows from the essence of an object.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.1)
     A reaction: This can help to clarify the confusions that result from treating necessary properties as if they were essential.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
15113 Individuals are perceived, but demonstration and definition require universals [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Individual instances of a kind of phenomenon, in Aristotle's view, can only be perceived through sense-perception; but they are not the proper subject-matter of scientific demonstration and definition.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1)
     A reaction: A footnote (11) explains that this is because they involve syllogisms, which require universals. I take Aristotle, and anyone sensible, to rest on individual essences, but inevitably turn to generic essences when language becomes involved.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / c. Essentials are necessary
15112 If an object exists, then its essential properties are necessary [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: If an object has a certain property essentially, then it follows that the object has the property necessarily (if it exists).
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.2)
     A reaction: She is citing Fine, who says that the converse (necessity implying essence) is false. I agree with that. I also willing to challenge the first bit. I suspect an object can retain identity and lose essence. Coma patient; broken clock; aged athlete.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
21500 We rely on memory for empirical beliefs because they mutually support one another [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: When the whole range of empirical beliefs is taken into account, all of them more or less dependent on memorial knowledge, we find that those which are most credible can be assured by their mutual support, or 'congruence'.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 334), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.1
     A reaction: Lewis may be over-confident about this, and is duly attacked by Olson, but it seems to me roughly correct. How do you assess whether some unusual element in your memory was a dream or a real experience?
21501 If we doubt memories we cannot assess our doubt, or what is being doubted [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: To doubt our sense of past experience as founded in actuality, would be to lose any criterion by which either the doubt itself or what is doubted could be corroborated.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 358), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.3.1
     A reaction: Obviously scepticism about memory can come in degrees, but total rejection of short-term and clear memories looks like a non-starter. What could you put in its place? Hyper-rationalism? Even maths needs memory.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism
6556 If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 186), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Intro
     A reaction: Lewis makes this comment when facing infinite regress problems. It is a very nice slogan for foundationalism, which embodies the slippery slope view. Personally I feel the emotional pull of foundations, but acknowledge the very strong doubts about them.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
21498 Congruents assertions increase the probability of each individual assertion in the set [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: A set of statements, or a set of supposed facts asserted, will be said to be congruent if and only if they are so related that the antecedent probability of any one of them will be increased if the remainder of the set can be assumed as given premises.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 338), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
     A reaction: This thesis is vigorously attacked by Erik Olson, who works through the probability calculations. There seems an obvious problem without that. How else do you assess 'congruence', other than by evidence of mutual strengthening?
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
1556 By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 2. Demonstration
15111 In demonstration, the explanatory order must mirror the causal order of the phenomena [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Demonstration encompasses more than deductive entailment, in that the explanatory order of priority represented in a successful demonstration must mirror precisely the causal order of priority present in the phenomena in question.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.1)
     A reaction: She is referring to Aristotle's 'Posterior Analytics'. Put so clearly this sounds like an incredibly useful concept in discussing how we present good modern scientific explanations. Reinstating Aristotle is a major priority for philosophy!
15115 In a demonstration the middle term explains, by being part of the definition [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: In a proper demonstrative argument, the middle term must be explanatory of the conclusion, in a very specific sense: the middle term must state what properly belongs to the definition of the kind of phenomenon in question.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1)
     A reaction: So 'All men are mortal, S is a man, so S is mortal'. The middle term is 'man', which gives a generic explanation for why S is mortal. Explanation as categorisation? I don't think this is the whole story of Aristotelian explanation.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
15117 Greek uses the same word for 'cause' and 'explanation' [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: The Greek does not disambiguate between 'cause' and 'explanation', since the same terms ('aitia' and 'aition') can be translated in both ways.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1 n15)
     A reaction: This is essential information if we are to understand Aristotle's Four Causes, which are quite baffling if we take 'causes' in the modern way. The are the Four Modes of Explanation.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
15114 Discovering the Aristotelian essence of thunder will tell us why thunder occurs [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Both the question 'what is thunder?', and the question 'why does thunder occur?', for Aristotle, are answered simultaneously, once it has been discovered what the essence of thunder it, i.e. what it is to be thunder.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1 n10)
     A reaction: I take this idea to be pretty much the whole story about essences.
18. Thought / C. Content / 8. Intension
5828 Extension is the class of things, intension is the correct definition of the thing, and intension determines extension [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: "The denotation or extension of a term is the class of all actual or existent things which the term correctly applies to or names; the connotation or intension of a term is delimited by any correct definition of it." ..And intension determines extension.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946]), quoted by Stephen P. Schwartz - Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds §II
     A reaction: The last part is one of the big ideas in philosophy of language, which was rejected by Putnam and co. If you were to reverse the slogan, though, (to extension determines intension) how would you identify the members of the extension?