Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'The Human Body is a sort of Machine' and 'What is Knowledge-First Epistemology?'

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5 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues

19540	Don't confuse justified belief with justified believers [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: Much theorizing about justification conflates issues of justified belief with issues of justified/blameless believers.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (What is Knowledge-First Epistemology? [2014], p.12)
	A reaction: [They cite Kent Bach 1985] Presumably the only thing that really justifies a belief is the truth, or the actual facts. You could then say 'p is a justified belief, though no one actually believes it'. E.g. the number of stars is odd.

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / b. Need for justification

19539	If knowledge is unanalysable, that makes justification more important [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: If knowledge is indeed unanalyzable, that could be seen as a liberation of justification to assume importance in its own right.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (What is Knowledge-First Epistemology? [2014], p.11)
	A reaction: [They cite Kvanvig 2003:192 and Greco 2010:9-] See Scruton's Idea 3897. I suspect that we should just give up discussing 'knowledge', which is a woolly and uninformative term, and focus on where the real epistemological action is.

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 2. Semantics

19538	Entailment is modelled in formal semantics as set inclusion (where 'mammals' contains 'cats') [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: Entailment is modelled in formal semantics as set inclusion. 'Cat' entails 'mammal' because the cats are a subset of the mammals.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (What is Knowledge-First Epistemology? [2014], p.10)
	A reaction: I would have thought that this was only one type of entailment. 'Travelling to Iceland entails flying'. Travelling includes flying, the reverse of cats/mammals, to a very complex set-theoretic account is needed. Interesting.

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').

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / b. Limited purposes

19376	A machine is best defined by its final cause, which explains the roles of the parts [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Any machine ...is best defined in terms of its final cause, so that in the description of the parts it is therefore apparent in what way each of them is coordinated with the others for the intended us.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (The Human Body is a sort of Machine [1683], p.290), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 3 'Machines'
	A reaction: We would use the 'function', an inherently teleological concept, and a concept which is almost indispensable for giving an illuminating description of the world. If nature is dispositional, it points towards things. Leibniz views persons as machines.