Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'', 'The Raft and the Pyramid' and 'The Sign of Four'

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11 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
8797 The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa]
     Full Idea: If I have a headache, I could have a set of beliefs that I do not have a headache, that I am not in pain, that no one is in pain, and so on. The resulting system of beliefs would cohere as fully as does my actual system of beliefs.
     From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §9)
     A reaction: I think this is a misunderstanding of coherentism. Beliefs are not to be formulated through a process of coherence, but are evaluated that way. A belief that I have headache just arrives; I then see that its denial is incoherent, so I accept it.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
10528 Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Our concern in giving a definition is not to say how things are by to say how we wish to speak
     From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310)
     A reaction: This sounds like an acceptable piece of wisdom which arises out of analytical and linguistic philosophy. It puts a damper on the Socratic dream of using definition of reveal the nature of reality.
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / d. Hume's Principle
10529 If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: Neo-Fregeans have thought that Hume's Principle, and the like, might be definitive of number and therefore not subject to the usual epistemological worries over its truth.
     From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.310)
     A reaction: This seems to be the underlying dream of logicism - that arithmetic is actually brought into existence by definitions, rather than by truths derived from elsewhere. But we must be able to count physical objects, as well as just counting numbers.
10530 Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: The fundamental difficulty facing the neo-Fregean is to either adopt the predicative reading of Hume's Principle, defining numbers, but inadequate, or the impredicative reading, which is adequate, but not really a definition.
     From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.312)
     A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this, but the general drift is the difficulty of building a system which has been brought into existence just by definition.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 1. Common Sense
8794 There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa]
     Full Idea: Radical foundationalism suffers from two weaknesses: there are not so many perfectly obvious truths as Descartes thought; and if we restrict ourselves to what it truly obvious, very little supposed common sense knowledge can be proved.
     From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §3)
     A reaction: It is striking how few examples can ever be found of self-evident a priori truths. However, if there are self-evident truths about direct experience (pace Descartes), that would give us more than enough.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / e. Pro-foundations
8796 A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa]
     Full Idea: A single belief can trail at once regresses of both sorts: one terminating and one not.
     From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §6)
     A reaction: This makes foundationalism possible, while admitting the existence of regresses. It is a good point, and triumphalist anti-foundationalists can't just point out a regress and then smugly troop off to the pub.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique
8799 If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa]
     Full Idea: If a mental state is not propositional, then how can it possibly serve as a foundation for belief? How can one infer or justify anything on the basis of a state that, having no propositional content, must be logically dumb?
     From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §11)
     A reaction: This may be the best objection to foundationalism. McDowell tries to argue that conceptual content is inherent in perception, thus giving the beginnings of inbuilt propositional content. But an organism awash with bare experiences knows nothing.
8795 Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa]
     Full Idea: If a mental state provides no guarantee against error, then it cannot serve as a foundation for knowledge.
     From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §4)
     A reaction: That assumes that knowledge entails certainty, which I am sure it should not. On a fallibilist account, a foundation could be incredibly secure, despite a barely imaginable scenario in which it turned out to be false.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 2. Causal Justification
8798 Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa]
     Full Idea: Visual experience is recognized as both the cause and the justification of our visual beliefs. But these are not wholly independent. Presumably the justification that something is red derives partly from the fact that it originates in visual experience.
     From: Ernest Sosa (The Raft and the Pyramid [1980], §10)
     A reaction: Yes, but the fact that certain visual experiences originate in dreams is taken as grounds for denying their truth, not affirming it. So why do we distinguish them? I am thinking that only in the 'space of reasons' can a cause become a justification.
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
22200 If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
     Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
     From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
10527 An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
     Full Idea: If an abstraction principle is going to be acceptable, then it should not 'inflate', i.e. it should not result in there being more abstracts than there are objects. By this mark Hume's Principle will be acceptable, but Frege's Law V will not.
     From: Kit Fine (Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction' [2005], p.307)
     A reaction: I take this to be motivated by my own intuition that abstract concepts had better be rooted in the world, or they are not worth the paper they are written on. The underlying idea this sort of abstraction is that it is 'shared' between objects.