33 ideas
| 7490 | Because of Darwin, wisdom as a definite attainable state has faded [Watson] |
| Full Idea: As well as killing the need for God, Darwin's legacy transformed the idea of wisdom, as some definite attainable state, however far off. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.31) | |
| A reaction: Where does this leave philosophy, if it is still (as I like to think) the love of wisdom? The best we can hope for is wisdom as a special sort of journey - touring, rather than arriving. |
| 7461 | The three key ideas are the soul, Europe, and the experiment [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The three key ideas that I have settled on in the history of ideas are: the soul, Europe, and the experiment. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The soul is a nice choice (rather than God). 'Europe' seems rather vast and indeterminate to count as a key idea. |
| 7464 | The big idea: imitation, the soul, experiments, God, heliocentric universe, evolution? [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Candidates for the most important idea in human history are: mimetic thinking (imitation), the soul, the experiment, the One True God, the heliocentric universe, and evolution. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.03) | |
| A reaction: From this list I would choose the heliocentric universe, because it so dramatically downgraded the importance of our species (effectively we went from everything to nothing). We still haven't recovered from the shock. |
| 8893 | For any given area, there seem to be a huge number of possible coherent systems of beliefs [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The 2nd standard objection to coherence is 'alternative coherent systems' - that there will be indefinitely many possible systems of belief in relation to any given subject area, each as internally coherent as the others. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that you could just invent an explanation, as long as it was coherent, but presumably good coherence is highly sensitive to the actual evidence. Bonjour observes that many of these systems would not survive over time. |
| 7465 | Babylonian thinking used analogy, rather than deduction or induction [Watson] |
| Full Idea: In Babylon thought seems to have worked mainly by analogy, rather than by the deductive or inductive processes we use in the modern world. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.04) | |
| A reaction: Analogy seems to be closely related to induction, if it is comparing instances of something. Given their developments in maths and astronomy, they can't have been complete strangers to the 'modern' way of thought. |
| 7466 | Mesopotamian numbers applied to specific things, and then became abstract [Watson] |
| Full Idea: To begin with, in Mesopotamia, counting systems applied to specific commodities (so the symbol for 'three sheep' applied only to sheep, and 'three cows' applied only to cows), but later words for abstract qualities emerged. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.04) | |
| A reaction: It seems from this that we actually have a record of the discovery of true numbers. Delightful. I think the best way to describe what happened is that they began to spot patterns. |
| 8888 | The concept of knowledge is so confused that it is best avoided [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The concept of knowledge is seriously problematic in more than one way, and is best avoided as far as possible in sober epistemological discussion. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Two sorts of states seem to be conflated: one where an animal has a true belief caused by an environmental event, and the other where a scholar pores over books and experiments to arrive at a hard-won truth. I say only the second is 'knowledge'. |
| 8887 | It is hard to give the concept of 'self-evident' a clear and defensible characterization [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Foundationalists find it difficult to attach a clear and defensible content to the idea that basic beliefs that are characterized as 'self-justified' or 'self-evident'. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: A little surprising from a fan of a priori foundations, especially given that 'self-evident' is common usage, and not just philosophers' jargon. I think we can talk of self-evidence without a precise definition. We talk of an 'ocean' without trouble. |
| 8897 | The adverbial account will still be needed when a mind apprehends its sense-data [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The adverbial account of the content of experience is almost certainly correct, because no account can be given of the relation between sense-data and the apprehending mind that is independent of the adverbial theory. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 5.1 n3) | |
| A reaction: This boils down to the usual objection to sense-data, which is 'cut out the middle man'. Bonjour is right that at some point the mind has finally to experience whatever is coming in, and it must experience it in a particular way. |
| 8896 | Conscious states have built-in awareness of content, so we know if a conceptual description of it is correct [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: If we describe a non-conceptual conscious state, we are aware of its character via the constitutive or 'built-in' awareness of content without need for a conceptual description, and so recognise that a conceptually formulated belief about it is correct. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: This is Bonjour working very hard to find an account of primitive sense experiences which will enable them to function as 'basic beliefs' for foundations, without being too thin to do anything, or too thick to be basic. I'm not convinced. |
| 8891 | My incoherent beliefs about art should not undermine my very coherent beliefs about physics [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: If coherentism is construed as involving the believer's entire body of beliefs, that would imply, most implausibly, that the justification of a belief in one area (physics) could be undermined by serious incoherence in another area (art history). | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Bonjour suggests that a moderated coherentism is needed to avoid this rather serious problem. It is hard to see how a precise specification could be given of 'areas' and 'local coherence'. An idiot about art would inspire little confidence on physics. |
| 8892 | Coherence seems to justify empirical beliefs about externals when there is no external input [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The 1st standard objection to coherence is the 'isolation problem', that contingent apparently-empirical beliefs might be justified in the absence of any informational input from the extra-conceptual world they attempt to describe. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: False beliefs can be well justified. In a perfect virtual reality we would believe our experiences precisely because they were so coherent. Messengers from the front line have top priority, but how do you detect infiltrators and liars? |
| 8894 | Coherentists must give a reason why coherent justification is likely to lead to the truth [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The 3rd standard objection to coherence is the demand for a meta-justification for coherence, a reason for thinking that justification on the basis of the coherentist view of justification is in fact likely to lead to believing the truth. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Some coherentists respond by adopting a coherence theory of truth, which strikes me as extremely unwise. There must be an underlying optimistic view, centred on the principle of sufficient reason, that reality itself is coherent. I like Idea 8618. |
| 8889 | Reliabilists disagree over whether some further requirement is needed to produce knowledge [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Reliabilist views differ among themselves with regard to whether a belief's being produced in a reliable way is by itself sufficient for epistemic justification or whether there are further requirements that must be satisfied as well. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: If 'further requirements' are needed, the crucial question would be which one is trumps when they clash. If the further requirements can correct the reliable source, then it cannot any longer be called 'reliabilism'. It's Further-requirement-ism. |
| 8890 | If the reliable facts producing a belief are unknown to me, my belief is not rational or responsible [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: How can the fact that a belief is reliably produced make my acceptance of that belief rational and responsible when that fact itself is entirely unavailable to me? | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This question must rival Pollock's proposal (Idea 8815) as the master argument against externalism. Bonjour is assuming that knowledge has to be 'rational and responsible', but clearly externalists take a more lax view of knowledge. |
| 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 |
| 8895 | If neither the first-level nor the second-level is itself conscious, there seems to be no consciousness present [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: In the higher-order thought theory of consciousness, if the first-order thought is not itself conscious and the second-order thought is not itself conscious, then there seems to be no consciousness of the first-level content present at all. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice basic question. The only plausible answer seems to be that consciousness arises out of the combination of levels. Otherwise one of the levels is redundant, or we are facing a regress. |
| 7477 | Modern democracy is actually elective oligarchy [Watson] |
| Full Idea: What we regard as democracy in the twenty-first century is actually elective oligarchy. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06) | |
| A reaction: Even dictatorships want to be called 'democracies'. The modern system is a bit of a concession to Plato, and he would probably have preferred it to his system, because at least the rulers tend to be more educated than the direct assembly. |
| 7478 | Greek philosophers invented the concept of 'nature' as their special subject [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Greek philosophers may have invented the concept of 'nature' to underline their superiority over poets and religious leaders. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.06) | |
| A reaction: Brilliant. They certainly wrote a lot of books entitled 'Peri Physis' (Concerning Nature), and it was the target of their expertise. A highly significant development, along with their rational methods. Presumably Socrates extends nature to include ethics. |
| 7462 | DNA mutation suggests humans and chimpanzees diverged 6.6 million years ago [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The basic mutation rate in DNA is 0.71 percent per million years. Working back from the present difference between human and chimpanzee DNA, we arrive at 6.6 million years ago for their divergence. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.01) | |
| A reaction: This database is committed to evolution (a reminder that even databases have commitments), and so facts of this kind are included, even though they are not strictly philosophical. All complaints should be inwardly digested and forgotten. |
| 7470 | During the rise of civilizations, the main gods changed from female to male [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Around the time of the rise of the first great civilizations, the main gods changed sex, as the Great Goddess, or a raft of smaller goddesses, were demoted and male gods took their place. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Why? War, perhaps? |
| 7474 | Hinduism has no founder, or prophet, or creed, or ecclesiastical structure [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Traditional Hinduism has been described as more a way of living than a way of thought; it has no founder, no prophet, no creed and no ecclesiastical structure. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: This contrast strikingly with all later religions, which felt they had to follow the Jews in becoming a 'religion of the book', with a sacred text, and hence a special status for the author(s) of that text. |
| 7479 | Modern Judaism became stabilised in 200 CE [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Judaism we know today didn't become stabilized until roughly 200 CE. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: By that stage it would have been subject to the influences of Christianity, ancient Greek philosophy, and neo-Platonism. |
| 7481 | The Israelites may have asserted the uniqueness of Yahweh to justify land claims [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Archaeology offers datable figures that seem to support the idea that the Israelites of the 'second exile' period converted Yahweh into a special, single God to justify their claims to the land. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: The implications for middle eastern politics of this wicked observation are beyond the remit of a philosophy database. |
| 7480 | Monotheism was a uniquely Israelite creation within the Middle East [Watson] |
| Full Idea: No one questions the fact that monotheism was a uniquely Israelite creation within the Middle East. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: I take the Middle East to exclude Greece, where they were developing similar ideas. Who knows? |
| 7471 | The Gathas (hymns) of Zoroastrianism date from about 1000 BCE [Watson] |
| Full Idea: The Gathas, the liturgical hymns that make up the 'Avesta', the Zoroastrian canon, are very similar in language to the oldest Sanskrit of Hinduism, so they are not much younger than 1200 BCE. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: This implies a big expansion of religion before the well-known expansion of the sixth century BCE. |
| 7473 | Zoroaster conceived the afterlife, judgement, heaven and hell, and the devil [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Life after death, resurrection, judgement, heaven and paradise, were all Zoroastrian firsts, as were hell and the devil. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: He appears to be the first 'prophet'. |
| 7483 | Paul's early writings mention few striking episodes from Jesus' life [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Paul's writings - letters mainly - predate the gospels and yet make no mention of many of the more striking episodes that make up Jesus' life. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.07) | |
| A reaction: This is not proof of anything, but it seems very significant if we are trying to get at the facts about Jesus. |
| 7484 | Jesus never intended to start a new religion [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Jesus never intended to start a new religion. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.08) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing fact, which makes you wonder whether any of the prophets ever had such an intention. |
| 7475 | Confucius revered the spiritual world, but not the supernatural, or a personal god, or the afterlife [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Confucius was deeply religious in a traditional sense, showing reverence towards heaven and an omnipresent spiritual world, but he was cool towards the supernatural, and does not seem to have believed in either a personal god or an afterlife. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: The implication is that the spiritual world was very remote from us, and beyond communication. Sounds like deism. |
| 7476 | Taoism aims at freedom from the world, the body, the mind, and nature [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Underlying Taoism is a search for freedom - from the world, from the body, from the mind, from nature. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Of all the world's religions, I think Taoism is the most ridiculouly misconceived. |
| 7463 | The three basic ingredients of religion are: the soul, seers or priests, and ritual [Watson] |
| Full Idea: Anthropologist distinguish three requirements for religion: a non-physical soul which can survive death; individuals who can receive supernatural inspiration; and rituals which can cause changes in the present world. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.01) | |
| A reaction: The latter two, of course, also imply belief in supernatural powers. |
| 7468 | In ancient Athens the souls of the dead are received by the 'upper air' [Watson] |
| Full Idea: An official Athenian war monument of 432 BCE says the souls of the dead will be received by the aither (the 'upper air'), though their bodies remain on earth. | |
| From: Peter Watson (Ideas [2005], Ch.05) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Did they think anything happened when they got there? There are also ideas about Hades, and the Isles of the Blessed floating around. |