Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'teachings', 'Phenomenalism' and 'Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn)'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

5 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy
2945 Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2)
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
2946 You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7)
     A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
2614 Modern phenomenalism holds that objects are logical constructions out of sense-data [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Nowadays phenomenalism is held to be a theory of perception which says that physical objects are logical constructions out of sense-data.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1)
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
2615 The concept of sense-data allows us to discuss appearances without worrying about reality [Ayer]
     Full Idea: The introduction of the term 'sense-datum' is a means of referring to appearances without prejudging the question of what it is, if anything, that they are appearances of.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1)
29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism
7607 Nagarjuna and others pronounced the world of experience to be an illusion [Nagarjuna, by Armstrong,K]
     Full Idea: Many later Buddhists (after Nagarjuna, c.120 CE) developed a belief that everything we experience is an illusion: in the West we would call them idealists.
     From: report of Nagarjuna (teachings [c.120]) by Karen Armstrong - A History of God Ch.3
     A reaction: This is just one step beyond Plato (who at least hung onto the immediate world as an inferior reality), and is presumably intended to motivate meditators to break out of the misery of existence into a higher realm. Personally I am against it.