5 ideas
19735 | Wisdom has a higher value than understanding, which has a higher value than knowledge [Greco] |
Full Idea: Intuitively, understanding is more valuable than knowledge and wisdom is more valuable than understanding. | |
From: John Greco (The Value Problem [2011], 'Knowledge') | |
A reaction: Down at the bottom is having an 'inkling' of something, I presume. Not convinced of this. I would rate understanding above knowledge, but wisdom seems rather different. It implies a breadth that does not focus on any particular topic. |
19734 | If value is practical, knowledge is no better than true opinion [Greco] |
Full Idea: Why should knowledge be more valuable than true opinion, if their practical value is the same? | |
From: John Greco (The Value Problem [2011], Intro) | |
A reaction: We have exam systems and academic titles to bestow social prestige on people who know, not to mention quiz shows. Modern society needs lots of knowledgeable citizens. I'm not sure what intrinsic value knowledge could have. |
19733 | Externalist theories don't explain why knowledge has value [Greco] |
Full Idea: Externalist theories do not give knowledge the sort of value that internalists want knowledge to have. | |
From: John Greco (The Value Problem [2011], Intro) | |
A reaction: [He cites Pritchard 2008] This is not a very strong argument, given the uncertainties and complexities in the idea that we share a 'value'. If the value of knowledge is really instrumental (and loved no less because of that), then externalism could cope. |
4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
Full Idea: I say that a thing is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature. | |
From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letter to G.H. Schaller [1674], 1674.10) | |
A reaction: Of course, this isn't 'freedom' at all, but it seems to exactly right as an account of so-called freedom. In the case of a human being the 'necessity of our own nature' is character, and virtue and vice are the expressions of the necessities of character. |
8433 | There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich] |
Full Idea: Lewis claims that most events are over-determined by subsequent states of the world, but not by their history. That is, the future of every event contains many independent traces of its occurrence, with little prior indication that it would happen. | |
From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow [1979]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.209 | |
A reaction: Lewis uses this asymmetry to deduce the direction of causation, and hence the direction of time. Most people (including me, I think) would prefer to use the axiomatic direction of time to deduce directions of causation. Lewis was very wicked. |