21 ideas
19081 | Coherence with a set of propositions suggests we can know the proposition corresponds [Davidson, by Donnellan] |
Full Idea: Davidson argues that the coherence of a set of propositions with a set of beliefs is a good indication that the proposition corresponds to objective facts and that we can know that propositions correspond. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983]) by Keith Donnellan - Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again §2.2 | |
A reaction: Young calls this an 'epistemological route to coherentism'. Davidson is sometimes cited as a fan of the coherence theory of truth, but this just seems to accept Russell's point that coherence is a good test for truth. |
22227 | For Sartre there is only being for-itself, or being in-itself (which is beyond experience) [Sartre, by Daigle] |
Full Idea: The two most fundamental modes of being in Sartre's ontology are being in-itself, and being for-itself. ...The in-itself lies beyond our experience of it. | |
From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.2 | |
A reaction: This appears to be Kant's ding-an-sich, paired with Heidegger's Dasein. If those are the only options, then reality is either subjective or unknown, which seems to make Sartre an idealist, but he asserted that phenomena vindicate the in-itself. |
8806 | The concepts of belief and truth are linked, since beliefs are meant to fit reality [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Knowing what a belief is brings with it the concept of objective truth, for the notion of a belief is the notion of a state that may or may not jibe with reality. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.162) | |
A reaction: I find any discussion of belief that makes no reference to truth (as in Hume) quite puzzling. I can understand it when a belief is just triggered by a sensation ('this is hot'), but not when a belief arrives after careful comparison of reasons. |
20743 | Appearances do not hide the essence; appearances are the essence [Sartre] |
Full Idea: We reject the dualism of appearance and essence. The appearance does not hide the essence, it reveals it; it is the essence. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.4-5), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology' | |
A reaction: This idea, expressed in the language of Hegel and Husserl, strikes me as the same as the analytic phenomenalism of Mill and Ayer. Hence I take it to be wrong. |
8252 | Davidson believes experience is non-conceptual, and outside the space of reasons [Davidson, by McDowell] |
Full Idea: Davidson thinks that experience can be nothing but an extra-conceptual impact on sensibility. So he concludes that experience must be outside the space of reasons. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], I.6) by John McDowell - Mind and World I | |
A reaction: McDowell's challenge to the view that experience is extra-conceptual seems to be the key debate among modern empiricists. My only intuition in this area is that we should beware of all-or-nothing solutions to such problems. |
8255 | Davidson says the world influences us causally; I say it influences us rationally [McDowell on Davidson] |
Full Idea: Davidson urges that we should hold that the world exerts a merely causal influence on our thinking, but I am trying to describe a way in which the world exerts a rational influence on our thinking. | |
From: comment on Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983]) by John McDowell - Mind and World II.5 | |
A reaction: McDowell seems to be fighting for the existence of 'pure' reason in a way that is hard to defend with a thoroughly materialist view of human brains. If the world is coherent, then maybe it is rational, and so has reasons to offer us? |
8804 | Reasons for beliefs are not the same as evidence [Davidson] |
Full Idea: We must find a reason for supposing most of our beliefs are true that is not a form of evidence. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.158) | |
A reaction: This simple observation strikes me as being a key truth in epistemology. It is the same confusion that creates Jackson's Knowledge Argument (Idea 7377) against physicalism (that experiencing red can be thought to be knowledge). |
8802 | Sensations lack the content to be logical; they cause beliefs, but they cannot justify them [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The relation between a sensation and a belief cannot be logical, since sensations are not beliefs or propositional attitudes. The relation must be causal. Sensations cause some beliefs, but they do not show why the belief is justified. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.157) | |
A reaction: This is, I am beginning to think, the single most important idea in the whole of modern epistemology. Animals have beliefs caused in this way, and because they only have simple beliefs about immediate things, most of their beliefs are true. |
8801 | Coherent justification says only beliefs can be reasons for holding other beliefs [Davidson] |
Full Idea: What distinguishes a coherence theory of justification is simply the claim that nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.156) | |
A reaction: I think I agree fully with this. Red patches and headaches I count as evidence rather than as reasons. Since a red patch can be hallucinatory, and a headache can be dreamed, they can't possibly embody true propositions without critical evaluation. |
8805 | Skepticism is false because our utterances agree, because they are caused by the same objects [Davidson] |
Full Idea: What stands in the way of global skepticism of the senses is the fact that we must take the objects of a belief to be the causes of that belief. And our utterances mean the same thing because belief in their truth is caused by the same objects. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], p.161) | |
A reaction: This is hardly a knock-down argument against scepticism, but it builds a nice picture. The second half extends the Private Language Argument (e.g. Idea 4158). But I still have non-existent conversations about non-existent things in my dreams. |
6151 | Sartre says consciousness is just directedness towards external objects [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Sartre defends a view of consciousness as nothing but a directedness towards objects, insisting that these objects are transcendent with respect to that consciousness; hence Sartre is one of the first genuine externalists. | |
From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.1 | |
A reaction: An ancestor here is, I think, Schopenhauer (Idea 4166). The idea is attractive, as we are brought up with idea that we have a thing called 'consciousness', but if you removed its contents there would literally be nothing left. |
16618 | Intellectual and moral states, and even the soul itself, depend on prime matter for their existence [Blasius, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Blasius argued that prime matter is the subject of all our intellectual and moral states. This implies that such states cannot exist apart from the body, which seems to imply further that the soul itself cannot exist apart from the body. | |
From: report of Blasius of Parma (Les quaestiones de anima (lectures on the soul) [1385], I.8 p.65) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 06.3 | |
A reaction: It seems that, under pressure, Blasius recanted this view in lectures given eleven years later. |
6164 | Sartre rejects mental content, and the idea that the mind has hidden inner features [Sartre, by Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Sartre's attack on the idea that consciousness has contents is an attack on the idea that the mental possesses features that are hidden, inner and constituted or revealed by the individual's inwardly directed awareness. | |
From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.5 | |
A reaction: This is part of the move towards 'externalism' about the mind. The notion of 'content' implies a container. It seems slightly ridiculous, though, to try to say that the mind just 'is the world'. How is reasoning possible, and the relation of ideas? |
18703 | Davidson's Cogito: 'I think, therefore I am generally right' [Davidson, by Button] |
Full Idea: Davidson's Cogito has the form 'I think, therefore I am generally right'. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge [1983], 16.6) by Tim Button - The Limits of Reason | |
A reaction: On the whole I would subscribe to this Cogito (as Button calls it), from an evolutionary perspective. There would just be no point in thought if it wasn't generally right in everyday activity. |
7074 | Man is a useless passion [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Man is a useless passion. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], IV.2.III) | |
A reaction: Memorable and neat. Since all of existence is ultimately 'useless', that part of it is not a revelation. The notion that we are essentially a 'passion' chimes nicely with David Hume's view, against the enlightenment rational view, and against Aristotle. |
6687 | Man is the desire to be God [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Man fundamentally is the desire to be God. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.556?), quoted by Gordon Graham - Eight Theories of Ethics Ch.5 | |
A reaction: It is better to see man (as seen all the way through the European tradition) as caught between the self-images of being an angel and being a 'quintessence of dust' (Hamlet). |
22228 | Sartre's freedom is not for whimsical action, but taking responsibility for our own values [Sartre, by Daigle] |
Full Idea: Readers often confuse Sartre's notion of freedom with the freedom of acting whimsically ....but since there is no God, we must create our own values. Freedom is not merely a licence to act whimsically.; it entails responsibility. | |
From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.3 | |
A reaction: The idea that we create our values comes from Nietzsche. Did Sartre want everyone to behave like an übermensch? How can you form a society from individuals who create private values, even if they (somehow) take responsibility for them? |
22233 | Love is the demand to be loved [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Love is the demand to be loved. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.488), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.5 | |
A reaction: Is that all love is? Hard to imagine someone loving another person without hoping that the other person will reciprocate. You need high self-esteem to 'demand' it. Low self-esteem merely hopes for it. He says the other person may feel the same. |
20755 | Fear concerns the world, but 'anguish' comes from confronting my self [Sartre] |
Full Idea: Anguish is distinguished from fear in that fear is fear of being in the world whereas anguish is anguish before myself. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.65), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 5 'Radical' | |
A reaction: I'm guessing that the anguish comes from the horror of the infinite choices available to me. Once you've made major life choices with full commitment (such as marriage), does that mean that existentialism becomes irrelevant? |
20760 | Sincerity is not authenticity, because it only commits to one particular identity [Sartre, by Aho] |
Full Idea: Being sincere [in Sartre] has nothing to do with authenticity because, in committing ourselves to a particular identity, we strip away the possibility of transcendence by reducing ourselves to a thing. | |
From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad' | |
A reaction: I take this to mean that sincerity says genuinely what role you are playing (such as a waiter), but authenticity is recognition that you don't have to play that role. I think. |
22231 | We flee from the anguish of freedom by seeing ourselves objectively, as determined [Sartre] |
Full Idea: We are always ready to take refuge in a belief in determinism if this freedom weighs upon us or if we need an excuse. Thus we flee from anguish by attempting to apprehend ourselves from without as an Other or a thing. | |
From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943], p.82), quoted by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.4 | |
A reaction: I would have thought we blame social pressures, or biological pressures, rather than metaphysical determinism, but it amounts to the same thing. If we are not free then probably nothing else is. |