Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Proof of an External World' and 'Belief Truth and Knowledge'

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4 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 2. Common Sense Certainty

6349	I can prove a hand exists, by holding one up, pointing to it, and saying 'here is one hand' [Moore,GE]
	Full Idea: I can prove now that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, 'Here is one hand', and adding, as I gesture with the left, 'and here is another'.
	From: G.E. Moore (Proof of an External World [1939], p.1)
	A reaction: The words need to be spoken, presumably, so that what he is doing fits into the linguistic conventions of what will normally be accepted as a proof. In fact, just holding the hand up seems enough. The proof begs the question of virtual reality.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception

3900	Maybe experience is not essential to perception, but only to the causing of beliefs [Armstrong, by Scruton]
	Full Idea: Armstrong has argued that experience, as normally understood, is not necessary to perception. To perceive is to acquire beliefs, through a causal process.
	From: report of David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 23.4

13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification

4253	Externalism says knowledge involves a natural relation between the belief state and what makes it true [Armstrong]
	Full Idea: Externalist accounts of non-inferential knowledge say what makes a true non-inferential belief a case of knowledge is some natural relation which holds between the belief state and the situation which makes the belief true.
	From: David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973], 11.III.6)
	A reaction: Armstrong's concept is presumably a response to Quine's desire to 'naturalise epistemology'. Bad move, I suspect. It probably reduces knowledge to mere true belief, and hence a redundant concept.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

7903	The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
	Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
	From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
	A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').