5 ideas
| 16705 | Whiteness isn't created in an alteration, because it is just this-being-white [Oresme] |
| Full Idea: If it is said that whiteness begins to be through alteration, this does not hold, because whiteness is nothing other than this-being-white. | |
| From: Nicole Oresme (On 'Generation and Corruption' [1349], I.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 19.3 | |
| A reaction: This innocent-looking remark is dynamite, because it rejects the separability of qualities, which threatens the doctrine of Transubstantiation. |
| 15990 | Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke] |
| Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist. | |
| From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism | |
| A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species. |
| 19525 | If the only aim is to believe truths, that justifies recklessly believing what is unsupported (if it is right) [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: If it is intellectually required that one try to believe all and only truths (as Chisholm says), ...then it is possible to believe some unsubstantiated proposition in a reckless endeavour to believe a truth, and happen to be right. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Evidentialism [1985], 'Justification') | |
| A reaction: This implies doxastic voluntarism. Sorry! I meant, this implies that we can control what we believe, when actually we believe what impinges on us as facts. |
| 15994 | If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke] |
| Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge. | |
| From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism | |
| A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it. |
| 19524 | We don't have the capacity to know all the logical consequences of our beliefs [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: Our limited cognitive capacities lead Goldman to deny a principle instructing people to believe all the logical consequences of their beliefs, since they are unable to have the infinite number of beliefs that following such a principle would require. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Evidentialism [1985], 'Doxastic') | |
| A reaction: This doesn't sound like much of an objection to epistemic closure, which I took to be the claim that you know the 'known' entailments of your knowledge. |