28 ideas
| 3695 | Philosophy is a priori if it is anything [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: My conviction is that philosophy is a priori if it is anything. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], Pref) | |
| A reaction: How about knowledge of a posteriori necessities, such as the length of a metre, known by observation of the standard metre in Paris? |
| 3651 | Perceiving necessary connections is the essence of reasoning [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: If one never in fact grasps any necessary connections between anything, it is hard to see what reasoning could possible amount to. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.3) |
| 3700 | Coherence can't be validated by appeal to coherence [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic authority of coherence cannot itself be established by appeal to coherence. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7 n50) | |
| A reaction: The standard approach amongs modern philosophers (following, I think, Kripke) is to insist on 'intuition' as basic, despite all its problems. I have no better suggestion. |
| 8195 | Undecidable statements result from quantifying over infinites, subjunctive conditionals, and the past tense [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: I once wrote that there are three linguistic devices that make it possible for us to frame undecidable statements: quantification over infinity totalities, as expressed by word such as 'never'; the subjunctive conditional form; and the past tense. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: Dummett now repudiates the third one. Statements containing vague concepts also appear to be undecidable. Personally I have no problems with deciding (to a fair extent) about 'never x', and 'if x were true', and 'it was x'. |
| 8194 | Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: There is surely no number n such that "n grains of sand do not make a heap, although n+1 grains of sand do" is true. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: It might be argued that there is such a number, but no human being is capable of determing it. Might God know the value of n? On the whole Dummett's view seems the most plausible. |
| 8190 | Intuitionists rely on the proof of mathematical statements, not their truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The intuitionist account of the meaning of mathematical statements does not employ the notion of a statement's being true, but only that of something's being a proof of the statement. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: I remain unconvinced that anyone could give an account of proof that didn't discreetly employ the notion of truth. What are we to make of "we suspect this is true, but no one knows how to prove it?" (e.g. Goldbach's Conjecture). |
| 8198 | A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east'. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: The phrase was coined in Oxford. It is a useful label with which realists can insult solipsists, idealists and other riff-raff. Four Dimensionalists seem to see time in this way. Events sit there, and we travel past them. But there are indexical events. |
| 8192 | I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past? |
| 13197 | The notion of substance is one of the keys to true philosophy [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I consider the notion of substance to be one of the keys to the true philosophy. ....I imagine that philosophers will one day know the notion of substance a bit better than they do now. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomas Burnett [1703], 1699.01.20/30) | |
| A reaction: This is a controversial remark at this historical moment, when the apparent Aristotelian commitment to substances was becoming discredited. Personally I would eliminate substance, but not just because physicists don't refer to it. |
| 3697 | The concept of possibility is prior to that of necessity [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: While necessity and possibility are interdefinable concepts, it is the idea of a possible world or situation which is intuitively primary. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.3) |
| 8199 | The existence of a universe without sentience or intelligence is an unintelligible fantasy [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The existence of a universe from which sentience was permanently absent is an unintelligible fantasy. What exists is what can be known to exist. What is true is what can be known to be true. Reality is what can be experienced and known. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as nonsense. The fact that we cannot think about a universe without introducing a viewpoint does not mean that we cannot 'intellectually imagine' its existence devoid of viewpoints. Nothing could ever experience a star's interior. |
| 3707 | Our rules of thought can only be judged by pure rational insight [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Criteria or rules do not somehow apply to themselves. They must be judged by the sort of rational insight or intuition that the rationalist is advocating. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §5.2) |
| 3704 | Moderate rationalists believe in fallible a priori justification [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Moderate rationalism preserves a priori justification, but rejects the idea that it is infallible. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) |
| 3706 | A priori justification can vary in degree [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: A priori justification can vary in degree. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.5) | |
| A reaction: This idea, which I trace back at least to Russell, seems to me one of breakthrough ideas in modern thought. It means that a priori knowledge can be reconnected with a posteriori knowledge. |
| 3696 | A priori justification requires understanding but no experience [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: A proposition will count as being justified a priori as long as no appeal to experience is needed for the proposition to be justified - once it is understood. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Could you 'understand' that a square cannot be circular without appeal to experience? I'm losing faith in the pure a priori. |
| 3703 | You can't explain away a priori justification as analyticity, and you can't totally give it up [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Moderate empiricists try unsuccessfully to explain a priori justification by means of analyticity, and radical empiricist attempts to dispense with a priori justification end in nearly total scepticism. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) | |
| A reaction: My working theory is neither of the above. Because we can abstract from the physical world, we can directly see/experience generalised (and even necessary) truths about it. |
| 3699 | The induction problem blocks any attempted proof of physical statements [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The attempt to prove physical statements on the basis of sensory evidence is defeated by the problem of induction. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.6) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a logician's use of the word 'prove', which would be a pretty forlorn hope. Insofar as experience proves anything, fully sensing a chair proves its existence. |
| 3701 | Externalist theories of justification don't require believers to have reasons for their beliefs [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: An externalist theory of epistemic justification or warrant need not involve the possession by the believer of anything like a reason for thinking that their belief is true. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7) | |
| A reaction: That is the problem with externalism. If the believer does not have a reason, then why would they believe? Externalists are interesting on justification, but daft about belief. Why do I believe I know something, when I can't recall how I learnt it? |
| 3702 | Externalism means we have no reason to believe, which is strong scepticism [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: If externalism is the final story, we have no reason to think that any of our beliefs are true, which amounts to a very strong and intuitively implausible version of scepticism. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7) | |
| A reaction: A very good point. I may, like a cat, know many things, with good external support, but as soon as I ask sceptical questions, I sink without trace if I lack internal reasons. |
| 3709 | Induction must go beyond the evidence, in order to explain why the evidence occurred [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Inductive explanations must be conceived of as something stronger than mere Humean constant conjunction; …anything less than this will not explain why the inductive evidence occurred in the first place. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §7.7) |
| 3708 | All thought represents either properties or indexicals [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: I assume that the contents of thought can be accounted for by appeal to just two general sorts of ingredient - properties (including relations) and indexicals. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §6.7) | |
| A reaction: I don't accept that relations are a type of properties. Since he does not include objects or substances, I take it that he considers objects to be bundles of properties. |
| 8193 | Verification is not an individual but a collective activity [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Verification is not an individual but a collective activity. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This generates problems. Are deceased members of the community included? (Yes, says Dummett). If someone speaks to angels (Blake!), do they get included? Is a majority necessary? What of weird loners? Etc. |
| 8189 | Truth-condition theorists must argue use can only be described by appeal to conditions of truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: To demonstrate the necessity of a truth-conditional theory of meaning, a proponent of such a theory must argue that use cannot be described without appeal to the conditions for the truth of statements. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Unlike Dummett, I find that argument rather appealing. How do you decide the possible or appropriate use for a piece of language, if you don't already know what it means. Basing it all on social conventions means it could be meaningless ritual. |
| 8191 | The truth-conditions theory must get agreement on a conception of truth [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: It is not enough for the truth-condition theorist to argue that we need the concept of truth: he must show that we should have the same conception of truth that he has. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 2) | |
| A reaction: Davidson invites us to accept Tarski's account of truth. It invites the question of what the theory would be like with a very robust correspondence account of truth, or a flabby rather subjective coherence view, or the worst sort of pragmatic view. |
| 3698 | Indeterminacy of translation is actually indeterminacy of meaning and belief [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The thesis of the indeterminacy of translation would be better described as the thesis of the indeterminacy of meaning and belief. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.5) | |
| A reaction: Not necessarily. It is not incoherent to believe that the target people have a coherent and stable system of meaning and belief, but finding its translation indeterminate because it is holistic, and rooted in a way of life. |
| 13198 | Gravity is within matter because of its structure, and it can be explained. [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I believe that both gravity and elasticity are in matter only because of the structure of the system and can be explained mechanically or through impulsion. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomas Burnett [1703], 1699 draft) | |
| A reaction: The significance of this remark is that gravity is held (in full knowledge of Newton's work) to be within matter, and not imposed from the outside. I believe we now postulate a particle as part of the explanation. |
| 8197 | Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: Maybe both the past and the future are real, determined by our current temporal perspective. Past is then events capable of having a causal influence upon events near us, and future is events we can affect, but from which we receive no information. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the Four-Dimensional view, which is opposed to Presentism. Might immediate unease is that it gives encouragement to fortune-tellers, whom I have always dismissed with 'You can't see the future, because it doesn't exist'. |
| 8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: The idea that only the present is real cannot be sustained. St Augustine pointed out that the present has no duration; it is a mere boundary between past and future, and dependent on them. It also denies truth-value to statements about past or future. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: To defend Presentism, I suspect that one must focus entirely on the activities of consciousness and short-term memory. All truths, of past or future, must refer totally to such mental events. But what could an event be if there is no enduring time? |