Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Two Problems of Epistemology', 'Criterion of Validity in Reasoning' and 'De modo distinguendi phaenomena'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

8 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason

14779	I reason in order to avoid disappointment and surprise [Peirce]
	Full Idea: I do not reason for the sake of my delight in reasoning, but solely to avoid disappointment and surprise.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Criterion of Validity in Reasoning [1903], I)
	A reaction: Hence Peirce places more emphasis on inductive and abductive reasoning than on deductive reasoning. I have to agree with him. Anyone account of why we reason must have an evolutionary framework. What advantage does reason bestow? It concerns the future.

3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth

14777	That a judgement is true and that we judge it true are quite different things [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Either J and the judgment 'I say that J is true' are the same for all judgments or for none. But if identical, their denials are identical. These are 'J is not true' and 'I do not say that J is true', which are different. No judgment judges itself true.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Criterion of Validity in Reasoning [1903], I)
	A reaction: If you are going to espouse the Ramseyan redundancy view of truth, you had better make sure you are not guilty of the error which Peirce identifies here.

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic

14780	Only study logic if you think your own reasoning is deficient [Peirce]
	Full Idea: It is foolish to study logic unless one is persuaded that one's own reasonings are more or less bad.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Criterion of Validity in Reasoning [1903], II)

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism

12741	If experience is just a dream, it is still real enough if critical reason is never deceived [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Even if this whole life were said to be only a dream, and the visible world only a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough if we were never deceived by it when we make good use of reason.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
	A reaction: I find this response more satisfactory than his response in Idea 12740. As a supporter of the coherence account of justification, I take the closest we get to knowledge to be when our full critical faculties and experience are brought to bear, and shared.

12740	The strongest criterion that phenomena show reality is success in prediction [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The most powerful criterion of the reality of phenomena, sufficient even by itself, is success in predicting future phenomena from past and present ones.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
	A reaction: I would say that this is clutching at straws, as there is no reason at all to deny that dreams could be thoroughly coherent and predictable in their events. We must just live with these doubts, not try to defeat them.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / a. Facts

14778	Facts are hard unmoved things, unaffected by what people may think of them [Peirce]
	Full Idea: Facts are hard things which do not consist in my thinking so and so, but stand unmoved by whatever you or I or any man or generations of men may opine about them.
	From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Criterion of Validity in Reasoning [1903], I)
	A reaction: This is my view of facts, with which I am perfectly happy, for all the difficulties involved in individuating facts, and in disentangling them from our own modes of thought and expression. Let us try to establish the facts.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique

12721	Light, heat and colour are apparent qualities, and so are motion, figure and extension [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Concerning bodies I can demonstrate that not merely light, heat, color, and similar qualities are apparent but also motion, figure, and extension.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1504), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
	A reaction: Leibniz is not consistent on this. Here he is flirting with idealism, but he often backs away from that. In Discourse §12 he makes secondary qualities certainly subjective, and primary qualities possibly so. He admits the primaries contain eternal truths.

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification

18284	Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper]
	Full Idea: Whereas particular reality statements are in principle completely verifiable or falsifiable, things are different for general reality statements: they can indeed be conclusively falsified, they can acquire a negative truth value, but not a positive one.
	From: Karl Popper (Two Problems of Epistemology [1932], p.256), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 18 'Laws'
	A reaction: This sounds like a logician's approach to science, but I prefer to look at coherence, where very little is actually conclusive, and one tinkers with the theory instead.