Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn)', 'Sentences' and 'Making It Explicit'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy

2945	Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2)

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis

2946	You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7)
	A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance.

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts

10355	Facts can't make claims true, because they are true claims [Brandom, by Kusch]
	Full Idea: Brandom says that facts do not make claims true, because facts simply are true claims.
	From: report of Robert B. Brandom (Making It Explicit [1994], p.327) by Martin Kusch - Knowledge by Agreement Ch.18
	A reaction: Nice. Notoriously, anyone defending the correspondence theory of truth in terms of facts had better say what they mean by a 'fact'. Personally I take a fact to be a non-verbal, mind-independent situation in the world, so I disagree with Brandom.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / e. Eventless time

16697	Time is independent of motion, because God could stop everything for a short or long time [Crathorn, by Pasnau]
	Full Idea: Suppose God annihilates everything, and then creates something new. The vacant interval could last a shorter or longer time, so there are facts about time independent of facts about motion.
	From: report of William Crathorn (Sentences [1335], I.16, concl.2) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2
	A reaction: Not very persuasive if God is in some way 'timeless'. Crathorn would have loved Shoemaker's argument, where motionless time is the best explanation, rather than a possible explanation.