Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge' and 'Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion'

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6 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification

9329	Justification is coherence with a background system; if irrefutable, it is knowledge [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: Justification is coherence with a background system which, when irrefutable, converts to knowledge.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: A problem (as the theory stands here) would be whether you have to be aware that the coherence is irrefutable, which would seem to require a pretty powerful intellect. If one needn't be aware of the irrefutability, how does it help my justification?

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind

9330	Generalization seems to be more fundamental to minds than spotting similarities [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: There is a level of generalization we share with other animals in the responses to objects that suggest that generalization is a more fundamental operation of the mind than the observation of similarities.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: He derives this from Reid (1785) - Lehrer's hero - who argued against Hume that we couldn't spot similarities if we hadn't already generalized to produce the 'respect' of the similarity. Interesting. I think Reid must be right.

16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 1. Introspection

9328	All conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them [Lehrer]
	Full Idea: I am inclined to think that all conscious states can be immediately known when attention is directed to them.
	From: Keith Lehrer (Consciousness,Represn, and Knowledge [2006])
	A reaction: This strikes me as a very helpful suggestion, for eliminating lots of problem cases for introspective knowledge which have been triumphally paraded in recent times. It might, though, be tautological, if it is actually a definition of 'conscious states'.

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').

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / a. Christianity

21798	To universalise 'give everything to the poor' leads to absurdity [Hegel]
	Full Idea: If everyone gave everything to the poor, then soon there would be no more poor to give anything to, or no more persons who would have anything to give.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 152), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Faith'
	A reaction: Matthew 5:8, 19:21. Beautifully clear. [I always believed that I had thought of this idea - but not so]. If the logic is that it is better to be poor than to be rich, then the implication is that all excess wealth should be thrown into the sea.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality

21797	Immortality does not come at a later time, but when pure knowing Spirit fully grasps the universal [Hegel]
	Full Idea: The immortality of the soul must not be imagined as though it first emerges into actuality at some later time; rather it is a present quality. ...As pure knowing or as thinking, Spirit has the universal for its object - this is eternity.
	From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion [1827], III: 208), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 10 'Death'
	A reaction: An unusual view of immortality, which challenges orthodoxy. The idea seems to be that 'pure knowing' is a grasping of the pure reason which embodies nature, which in turn is the nature of God. You enter eternity, rather than reside in it?