11 ideas
17596 | Coherence problems have positive and negative restraints; solutions maximise constraint satisfaction [Thagard] |
Full Idea: A coherence problem is a set of elements connected by positive and negative restraints, and a solution consists of partitioning the elements into two sets (accepted and rejected) in a way that maximises satisfaction of the constraints. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.42) | |
A reaction: I'm enthusiastic about this, as it begins to clarify the central activity of epistemology, which is the quest for best explanations. |
17597 | Coherence is explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative [Thagard] |
Full Idea: I propose that there are six main kinds of coherence: explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative. ...Epistemic coherence is a combination of the first five kinds, and ethics adds the sixth. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.43) | |
A reaction: Wonderful. Someone is getting to grips with the concept of coherence, instead of just whingeing about how vague it is. |
17598 | Explanatory coherence needs symmetry,explanation,analogy,data priority, contradiction,competition,acceptance [Thagard] |
Full Idea: Informally, a theory of explanatory coherence has the principles of symmetry, explanation, analogy, data priority, contradiction, competition and acceptance. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.44) | |
A reaction: [Thagard give a concise summary of his theory here] Again Thagard makes a wonderful contribution in an area where most thinkers are pessimistic about making any progress. His principles are very plausible. |
17602 | Verisimilitude comes from including more phenomena, and revealing what underlies [Thagard] |
Full Idea: A scientific theory is progressively approximating the truth if it increases its explanatory coherence by broadening to more phenomena and deepening by investigating layers of mechanisms. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.46) |
21982 | I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L] |
Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people." | |
From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork. |
17601 | Neither a priori rationalism nor sense data empiricism account for scientific knowledge [Thagard] |
Full Idea: Both rationalists (who start with a priori truths and make deductions) and empiricists (starting with indubitable sense data and what follows) would guarantee truth, but neither even begins to account for scientific knowledge. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.46) | |
A reaction: Thagard's answer, and mine, is inference to the best explanation, but goes beyond both the a priori truths and the perceptions. |
17600 | Bayesian inference is forced to rely on approximations [Thagard] |
Full Idea: It is well known that the general problem with Bayesian inference is that it is computationally intractable, so the algorithms used for computing posterior probabilities have to be approximations. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.45) | |
A reaction: Thagard makes this sound devastating, but then concedes that all theories have to rely on approximations, so I haven't quite grasped this idea. He gives references. |
17599 | The best theory has the highest subjective (Bayesian) probability? [Thagard] |
Full Idea: On the Bayesian view, the best theory is the one with the highest subjective probability, given the evidence as calculated by Bayes's theorem. | |
From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.45) |
7906 | When the Buddha reached the highest level of insight, he could detect no self in the world [Ashvaghosha] |
Full Idea: The great Buddha passed through the eight stages of Transic insight, and quickly reached their highest point. From the summit of the world downwards he could detect no self anywhere. | |
From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV) | |
A reaction: In the manner of Nietzsche, I am inclined to say that they find what they want to find, because that is their value. They want to get rid of the self, and dream of a mode in which existence continues without it. Is Buddhism opposed to human life? |
7904 | The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking [Ashvaghosha] |
Full Idea: The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking. | |
From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], V.11) | |
A reaction: Personally I am not sure that I would want to go any further that the first stage, since the elimination of discursive thinking seems to me to be approaching death. To pursue intense thinking very calmly I take to be the ideal of all western philosophers. |
7905 | The Buddha sought ultimate reality and the final goal of existence in his meditations [Ashvaghosha] |
Full Idea: Next the Boddhisatva, possessed of great skill in Transic meditation, put himself into a trance, intent on discerning both the ultimate reality of things and the final goal of existence. | |
From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV.2) | |
A reaction: The ontological and teleological goals of the Buddha were identical to the goals of the ancient Greek philosophers, and even we have teleological aims in our study of evolution. I would expect better results from the western approach. |