Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Coherence: The Price is Right' and 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet'

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10 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence

17596	Coherence problems have positive and negative restraints; solutions maximise constraint satisfaction [Thagard]
	Full Idea: A coherence problem is a set of elements connected by positive and negative restraints, and a solution consists of partitioning the elements into two sets (accepted and rejected) in a way that maximises satisfaction of the constraints.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.42)
	A reaction: I'm enthusiastic about this, as it begins to clarify the central activity of epistemology, which is the quest for best explanations.

17597	Coherence is explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative [Thagard]
	Full Idea: I propose that there are six main kinds of coherence: explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative. ...Epistemic coherence is a combination of the first five kinds, and ethics adds the sixth.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.43)
	A reaction: Wonderful. Someone is getting to grips with the concept of coherence, instead of just whingeing about how vague it is.

17598	Explanatory coherence needs symmetry,explanation,analogy,data priority, contradiction,competition,acceptance [Thagard]
	Full Idea: Informally, a theory of explanatory coherence has the principles of symmetry, explanation, analogy, data priority, contradiction, competition and acceptance.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.44)
	A reaction: [Thagard give a concise summary of his theory here] Again Thagard makes a wonderful contribution in an area where most thinkers are pessimistic about making any progress. His principles are very plausible.

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude

17602	Verisimilitude comes from including more phenomena, and revealing what underlies [Thagard]
	Full Idea: A scientific theory is progressively approximating the truth if it increases its explanatory coherence by broadening to more phenomena and deepening by investigating layers of mechanisms.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.46)

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory

17601	Neither a priori rationalism nor sense data empiricism account for scientific knowledge [Thagard]
	Full Idea: Both rationalists (who start with a priori truths and make deductions) and empiricists (starting with indubitable sense data and what follows) would guarantee truth, but neither even begins to account for scientific knowledge.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.46)
	A reaction: Thagard's answer, and mine, is inference to the best explanation, but goes beyond both the a priori truths and the perceptions.

14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem

17600	Bayesian inference is forced to rely on approximations [Thagard]
	Full Idea: It is well known that the general problem with Bayesian inference is that it is computationally intractable, so the algorithms used for computing posterior probabilities have to be approximations.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.45)
	A reaction: Thagard makes this sound devastating, but then concedes that all theories have to rely on approximations, so I haven't quite grasped this idea. He gives references.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / a. Best explanation

17599	The best theory has the highest subjective (Bayesian) probability? [Thagard]
	Full Idea: On the Bayesian view, the best theory is the one with the highest subjective probability, given the evidence as calculated by Bayes's theorem.
	From: Paul Thagard (Coherence: The Price is Right [2012], p.45)

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').