Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Posthumous notes', 'Understanding' and 'Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions?'

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9 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 6. Probability
13857 Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington]
     Full Idea: How likely is a fair die landing on an even number to land six? My approach is, assume an even number, so three possibilities, one a six, so 'one third'; the truth-functional approach is it's true if it is not-even or six, so 'two-thirds'.
     From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 3)
     A reaction: The point is that in the truth-functional approach, if the die lands not-even, then the conditional comes out as true, when she says it should be irrelevant. She seems to be right about this.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / a. Conditionals
13853 It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington]
     Full Idea: The mistake philosophers have made, in trying to understand the conditional, is to assume that its function is to make a statement about how the world is (or how other possible worlds are related to it), true or false, as the case may be.
     From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
     A reaction: 'If pigs could fly we would never catch them' may not be about the world, but 'if you press this switch the light comes on' seems to be. Actually even the first one is about the world. I've an inkling that Edgington is wrong about this. Powers!
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
13855 A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington]
     Full Idea: A conditional does not have truth conditions.
     From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
13859 X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington]
     Full Idea: X believes that if A, B, to the extent that he judges that A & B is nearly as likely as A, or (roughly equivalently) to the extent that he judges A & B to be more likely than A & ¬B.
     From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 5)
     A reaction: This is a formal statement of her theory of conditionals.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / e. Supposition conditionals
13854 Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington]
     Full Idea: It is often necessary to suppose (or assume) that some epistemic possibility is true, and to consider what else would be the case, or would be likely to be the case, given this supposition. The conditional expresses the outcome of such thought processes.
     From: Dorothy Edgington (Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? [1986], 1)
     A reaction: This is the basic Edgington view. It seems to involve an active thought process, and imagination, rather than being the static semantic relations offered by possible worlds analyses. True conditionals state relationships in the world.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
19691 Unlike knowledge, you can achieve understanding through luck [Grimm]
     Full Idea: It may be that understanding is compatible with luck, in a way that knowledge is not.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
     A reaction: [He cites Kvanvig and Prichard] If so, then we cannot say that knowledge is a lesser type of understanding. If you ask a trusted person how a mechanism works, and they have a wild guess that is luckily right, you would then understand it.
19690 'Grasping' a structure seems to be modal, because we must anticipate its behaviour [Grimm]
     Full Idea: 'Graspng' a structure would seem to bring into play something like a modal sense or ability, not just to register how things are, but also to anticipate how certain elements of the system would behave.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 2)
     A reaction: In the case of the chronology of some historical events, talking of 'grasping' or 'understanding' seems wrong because the facts are static and invariant. That seems to support the present idea. But you might 'understand' a pattern if you can reproduce it.
19692 You may have 'weak' understanding, if by luck you can answer a set of 'why questions' [Grimm]
     Full Idea: There may be a 'weak' sense of understanding, where all you need to do is to be able to answer 'why questions' successfully, where one might have come by this ability in a lucky way.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
     A reaction: We can see this point (in Idea 19691), but the idea that one could come by true complex understanding of something by purely lucky means is a bit absurd. Surely you would get one or two why questions wrong? 100%, just by luck?
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
21971 Transcendental philosophy is the subject becoming the originator of unified reality [Kant]
     Full Idea: Transcendental philosophy is the act of consciousness whereby the subject becomes the originator of itself and, thereby, of the whole object of technical-practical and moral-practical reason in one system - ordering all things in God
     From: Immanuel Kant (Posthumous notes [1799], 21:78, p.245), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06 App
     A reaction: This is evidently Kant's last word on the matter (c.1799), and Moore says he was drifting close to Fichte's idealism, in which reality is actually (sort of) created by our own minds. Disappointing! God's role here is unclear.