Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts' and 'The Raft and the Pyramid'

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9 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.

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

9390	Logic guides thinking, but it isn't a substitute for it [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: Logic is part of a normative theory of thinking, not a substitute for thinking.
	From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.13)
	A reaction: There is some sort of logicians' dream, going back to Leibniz, of a reasoning engine, which accepts propositions and outputs inferences. I agree with this idea. People who excel at logic are often, it seems to me, modest at philosophy.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

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.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects

9389	Vague membership of sets is possible if the set is defined by its concept, not its members [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: Vagueness in respect of membership is consistency with determinacy of the set's identity, so long as a set's identity is taken to consist, not in its having such-and-such members, but in its being the extension of a concept.
	From: Ian Rumfitt (The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts [2007], p.5)
	A reaction: I find this view of sets much more appealing than the one that identifies a set with its members. The empty set is less of a problem, as well as non-existents. Logicians prefer the extensional view because it is tidy.

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.