20 ideas
7893 | Our life is the creation of our mind [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: our life is the creation of our mind. | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §1.1) | |
A reaction: I may adopt this as a second epigraph for the database. This idea records the subjective view, which now comes up against evolutionary psychology. Maybe philosophy is opposed to science, because it is committed to exploring the subjective view? |
8893 | For any given area, there seem to be a huge number of possible coherent systems of beliefs [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The 2nd standard objection to coherence is 'alternative coherent systems' - that there will be indefinitely many possible systems of belief in relation to any given subject area, each as internally coherent as the others. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.2) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that you could just invent an explanation, as long as it was coherent, but presumably good coherence is highly sensitive to the actual evidence. Bonjour observes that many of these systems would not survive over time. |
8888 | The concept of knowledge is so confused that it is best avoided [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The concept of knowledge is seriously problematic in more than one way, and is best avoided as far as possible in sober epistemological discussion. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 1.5) | |
A reaction: Two sorts of states seem to be conflated: one where an animal has a true belief caused by an environmental event, and the other where a scholar pores over books and experiments to arrive at a hard-won truth. I say only the second is 'knowledge'. |
7898 | The world is just the illusion of an appearance [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: When a man considers this world as a bubble of froth, and as the illusion of an appearance, then the king of death has no power over him. | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §13.170) | |
A reaction: Strictly, of course, this says you can 'consider' things this way. Perhaps we could substitute 'pretends', but the world's great religions don't go in for that sort of thing. Berkeley would be shocked to learn he was approaching Buddhism. |
8887 | It is hard to give the concept of 'self-evident' a clear and defensible characterization [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Foundationalists find it difficult to attach a clear and defensible content to the idea that basic beliefs that are characterized as 'self-justified' or 'self-evident'. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 1.4) | |
A reaction: A little surprising from a fan of a priori foundations, especially given that 'self-evident' is common usage, and not just philosophers' jargon. I think we can talk of self-evidence without a precise definition. We talk of an 'ocean' without trouble. |
8897 | The adverbial account will still be needed when a mind apprehends its sense-data [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The adverbial account of the content of experience is almost certainly correct, because no account can be given of the relation between sense-data and the apprehending mind that is independent of the adverbial theory. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 5.1 n3) | |
A reaction: This boils down to the usual objection to sense-data, which is 'cut out the middle man'. Bonjour is right that at some point the mind has finally to experience whatever is coming in, and it must experience it in a particular way. |
8896 | Conscious states have built-in awareness of content, so we know if a conceptual description of it is correct [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: If we describe a non-conceptual conscious state, we are aware of its character via the constitutive or 'built-in' awareness of content without need for a conceptual description, and so recognise that a conceptually formulated belief about it is correct. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 4.3) | |
A reaction: This is Bonjour working very hard to find an account of primitive sense experiences which will enable them to function as 'basic beliefs' for foundations, without being too thin to do anything, or too thick to be basic. I'm not convinced. |
8891 | My incoherent beliefs about art should not undermine my very coherent beliefs about physics [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: If coherentism is construed as involving the believer's entire body of beliefs, that would imply, most implausibly, that the justification of a belief in one area (physics) could be undermined by serious incoherence in another area (art history). | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.1) | |
A reaction: Bonjour suggests that a moderated coherentism is needed to avoid this rather serious problem. It is hard to see how a precise specification could be given of 'areas' and 'local coherence'. An idiot about art would inspire little confidence on physics. |
8892 | Coherence seems to justify empirical beliefs about externals when there is no external input [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The 1st standard objection to coherence is the 'isolation problem', that contingent apparently-empirical beliefs might be justified in the absence of any informational input from the extra-conceptual world they attempt to describe. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.2) | |
A reaction: False beliefs can be well justified. In a perfect virtual reality we would believe our experiences precisely because they were so coherent. Messengers from the front line have top priority, but how do you detect infiltrators and liars? |
8894 | Coherentists must give a reason why coherent justification is likely to lead to the truth [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: The 3rd standard objection to coherence is the demand for a meta-justification for coherence, a reason for thinking that justification on the basis of the coherentist view of justification is in fact likely to lead to believing the truth. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 3.2) | |
A reaction: Some coherentists respond by adopting a coherence theory of truth, which strikes me as extremely unwise. There must be an underlying optimistic view, centred on the principle of sufficient reason, that reality itself is coherent. I like Idea 8618. |
11052 | Psychological logic can't distinguish justification from causes of a belief [Frege] |
Full Idea: With the psychological conception of logic we lose the distinction between the grounds that justify a conviction and the causes that actually produce it. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Logic [1897] [1897]) | |
A reaction: Thus Frege kicked the causal theory of justification well into touch long before it had even been properly formulated. That is not to say that there is no psychological aspect to logic, because there is. |
8889 | Reliabilists disagree over whether some further requirement is needed to produce knowledge [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: Reliabilist views differ among themselves with regard to whether a belief's being produced in a reliable way is by itself sufficient for epistemic justification or whether there are further requirements that must be satisfied as well. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 2.1) | |
A reaction: If 'further requirements' are needed, the crucial question would be which one is trumps when they clash. If the further requirements can correct the reliable source, then it cannot any longer be called 'reliabilism'. It's Further-requirement-ism. |
8890 | If the reliable facts producing a belief are unknown to me, my belief is not rational or responsible [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: How can the fact that a belief is reliably produced make my acceptance of that belief rational and responsible when that fact itself is entirely unavailable to me? | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 2.2) | |
A reaction: This question must rival Pollock's proposal (Idea 8815) as the master argument against externalism. Bonjour is assuming that knowledge has to be 'rational and responsible', but clearly externalists take a more lax view of knowledge. |
8895 | If neither the first-level nor the second-level is itself conscious, there seems to be no consciousness present [Bonjour] |
Full Idea: In the higher-order thought theory of consciousness, if the first-order thought is not itself conscious and the second-order thought is not itself conscious, then there seems to be no consciousness of the first-level content present at all. | |
From: Laurence Bonjour (A Version of Internalist Foundationalism [2003], 4.2) | |
A reaction: A nice basic question. The only plausible answer seems to be that consciousness arises out of the combination of levels. Otherwise one of the levels is redundant, or we are facing a regress. |
7894 | Hate is conquered by love [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: Hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered by love. This is the law eternal. | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §1.5) | |
A reaction: [N.B. This thought was not invented by Jesus] The challenge to this view might be the tit-for-tat strategy of game theory, which says that hate is actually conquered by a combination of hate and love, judiciously applied. |
7899 | Even divine pleasure will not satisfy the wise, as it is insatiable, and leads to pain [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: Since a shower of gold coins could not satisfy craving desires and the end of all pleasure is pain, how could a wise man find satisfaction even in the pleasures of the gods? | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §14.186) | |
A reaction: I'm never sure how so many ancient thinkers arrived at this implausible view. They seem to think that no one knows when to stop, and that every drink leads to hangover. What is actually wrong with moderate sensible pleasure? |
7896 | The foolish gradually fill with evil, like a slowly-filled water-jar [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the foolish man becomes full of evil, although he gather it little by little. | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §9.121) | |
A reaction: This coincides closely with Aristotle's view of moral education. Maybe a wise man can maintain one small vice. Not all slopes are slippery. |
7897 | The wise gradually fill with good, like a slowly-filled water-jar [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: The falling of drops of water will in time fill a water-jar. Even so the wise man becomes full of good, although he gather it little by little. | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §9.122) | |
A reaction: Again, this is like Aristotle's proposal of how to educate people in virtue. In my experience, there is no guarantee that small acts of politeness and charity will eventually guarantee goodness of character. Thought is also needed. |
7895 | Don't befriend fools; either find superior friends, or travel alone [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: If on the great journey of life a man cannot find one who is better or at least as good as himself, let him joyfully travel alone: a fool cannot help him on his journey. | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §5.61) | |
A reaction: This is a slightly disturbing aspect of Buddhism, possibly leading to contradiction. It urges friendship and love, but the finest people will have virtually no friends, and solitude is presented as a finer state than friendship. |
7900 | Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks [Anon (Dham)] |
Full Idea: Speak the truth, yield not to anger, give what you can to him who asks: these three steps lead you to the gods | |
From: Anon (Dham) (The DhammaPada [c.250 BCE], §17.224) | |
A reaction: I don't recall either the Old or New Testament, or the Koran, placing great emphasis on speaking the truth. The injunction to give is not so simple. Give to greedy children, to alcoholics, to criminals, to the rich, to fools, to yourself? |