Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'God and Human Attributes', 'Virtue Epistemology' and 'The Basing Relation'

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6 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs

19696	There are reasons 'for which' a belief is held, reasons 'why' it is believed, and reasons 'to' believe it [Neta]
	Full Idea: We must distinguish between something's being a 'reason for which' a creature believes something, and its being a 'reason why' a creature believes something. ...We must also distinguish a 'reason for which' from a 'reason to' believe something.
	From: Ram Neta (The Basing Relation [2011], Intro)
	A reaction: He doesn't spell the distinctions out clearly. I take it that 'for which' is my personal justification, 'why' is the dodgy prejudices that cause my belief. and 'to' is some actual good reasons, of which I may be unaware.

19697	The basing relation of a reason to a belief should both support and explain the belief [Neta]
	Full Idea: A reason has a 'basing relation' with a belief if it (i) rationally supports holding the belief, and (ii) explains why the belief is held.
	From: Ram Neta (The Basing Relation [2011], Intro)
	A reaction: Presumably a false reason would fit this account. Why not talk of 'grounding', or is that word now reserved for metaphysics? If I hypnotise you into a belief, would my hypnotic power be the basing reason? Fits (ii), but not (i).

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 1. Epistemic virtues

19730	Epistemic virtues: love of knowledge, courage, caution, autonomy, practical wisdom... [Kvanvig]
	Full Idea: Virtue theorists may focus on the particular habits or virtues of successful cognizers, such as love of knowledge, firmness, courage and caution, humility, autonomy, generosity, and practical wisdom.
	From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], III)
	A reaction: [He cites Roberts and Wood 2007] It is interesting that most of these virtues do not merely concern cognition. How about diligence, self-criticism, flexibility...?

19731	If epistemic virtues are faculties or powers, that doesn't explain propositional knowledge [Kvanvig]
	Full Idea: Conceiving of the virtues in terms of faculties or powers doesn't help at all with the problem of accounting for propositional knowledge.
	From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], IV B)
	A reaction: It always looks as if epistemic virtues are a little peripheral to the main business of knowledge, which is getting beliefs to be correct and well-founded. Given that epistemic saints make occasional mistakes, talk of virtues can't be enough.

19732	The value of good means of attaining truth are swamped by the value of the truth itself [Kvanvig]
	Full Idea: The Swamping Problem is that the value of truth swamps the value of additional features of true beliefs which are only instrumentally related to them. True belief is no more valuable if one adds a feature valuable for getting one to the truth.
	From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], IV B)
	A reaction: His targets here are reliabilism and epistemic virtues. Kvanvig's implication is that the key to understanding the nature of knowledge is to pinpoint why we value it so much.

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / c. Moral Argument

20713	God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
	Full Idea: Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
	From: report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
	A reaction: Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?