12 ideas
12268 | Contradiction is impossible [Antisthenes (I), by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Antisthenes said that contradiction is impossible. | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b21 | |
A reaction: Aristotle is giving an example of a 'thesis'. It should be taken seriously if a philosopher proposes it, but dismissed as rubbish if anyone else proposes it! No context is given for the remark. |
602 | Some fools think you cannot define anything, but only say what it is like [Antisthenes (I), by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There is an application of that old chestnut of the cynic Antisthenes' followers (and other buffoons of that kind). Their claim was that a definition of what something is is impossible. You cannot define silver, though you can say it is like tin. | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1043b |
16705 | Whiteness isn't created in an alteration, because it is just this-being-white [Oresme] |
Full Idea: If it is said that whiteness begins to be through alteration, this does not hold, because whiteness is nothing other than this-being-white. | |
From: Nicole Oresme (On 'Generation and Corruption' [1349], I.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 19.3 | |
A reaction: This innocent-looking remark is dynamite, because it rejects the separability of qualities, which threatens the doctrine of Transubstantiation. |
19513 | A contextualist coherentist will say that how strongly a justification must cohere depends on context [DeRose] |
Full Idea: If you are a coherentist and a contextualist, you'll probably want to hold that how strongly beliefs must cohere with one another in order to count as knowledge (if they are true), or to count as justified, is a contextually variable matter. | |
From: Keith DeRose (The Case for Contextualism [2009], 1.09) | |
A reaction: How exciting! He's talking about ME! Context might not only dictate the strength of the coherence, but also the range of beliefs involved. In fact all of Thagard's criteria of coherence may be subject to contextual variation. |
19514 | Classical invariantism combines fixed truth-conditions with variable assertability standards [DeRose] |
Full Idea: The great rival to contextualism is classical 'invariantism' - invariantism about the truth-conditions [for knowing], combined with variable standards for warranted assertability. | |
From: Keith DeRose (The Case for Contextualism [2009], 1.12) | |
A reaction: That is, I take it, that we might want to assert that someone 'knows' something, when the truth is that they don't. That is, either you know or you don't, but we can bend the rules as to whether we say you know. I take this view to be false. |
19515 | We can make contextualism more precise, by specifying the discrimination needed each time [DeRose] |
Full Idea: We might make the basic contextualist schema more precise ...by saying the change in content will consist in a change in the range of relevant alternatives. Higher standards would discriminate from a broader range of alternatives. | |
From: Keith DeRose (The Case for Contextualism [2009], 1.14) | |
A reaction: This would handle the 'fake barn' and 'disguised zebra' examples, by saying lower standards do not expect such discriminations. The zebra case has a lower standard than the barn case (because fake barns are the norm here). |
19510 | In some contexts there is little more to knowledge than true belief. [DeRose] |
Full Idea: I'm inclined to accept that in certain contexts the standards for knowledge are so low that little more than true belief is required. | |
From: Keith DeRose (The Case for Contextualism [2009], 1.6) | |
A reaction: DeRose emphasises that 'a little more' is needed, rather than none. The example given is where 'he knew that p' means little more than 'the information that p was available to him' (in a political scandal). |
19516 | Contextualists worry about scepticism, but they should focus on the use of 'know' in ordinary speech [DeRose] |
Full Idea: While skepticism has drawn much of the attention of contextualists, support for contextualism should also - and perhaps primarily - be looked for in how 'knows' is utilised in non-philosophical conversation. | |
From: Keith DeRose (The Case for Contextualism [2009], 1016) | |
A reaction: Contextualists say scepticism is just raising the standards absurdly high. I take it that the ordinary use of the word 'know' is obviously highly contextual, and so varied that I don't see how philosophers could 'regiment' it into invariant form. |
19511 | If contextualism is about knowledge attribution, rather than knowledge, then it is philosophy of language [DeRose] |
Full Idea: Maybe contextualism isn't a theory about knowledge at all, but about knowledge attributions. As such, it is not a piece of epistemology at all, but of philosophy of language. | |
From: Keith DeRose (The Case for Contextualism [2009], 1.7) | |
A reaction: DeRose takes this view to be wrong. At the very least this will have to include self-attributions, by the supposed knower, because I might say 'I know that p', meaning 'but only in this rather low-standard context'. |
1664 | I would rather go mad than experience pleasure [Antisthenes (I)] |
Full Idea: I would rather go mad than experience pleasure. | |
From: Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.3 | |
A reaction: Did he actually prefer pain? If both experiences would drive him mad, it seems like a desire for death. I cannot understand why anyone is opposed to harmless pleasures. |
21385 | Antisthenes said virtue is teachable and permanent, is life's goal, and is like universal wealth [Antisthenes (I), by Long] |
Full Idea: The moral propositions of Antisthenes foreshadowed the Stoics: virtue can be taught and once acquired cannot be lost (fr.69,71); virtue is the goal of life (22); the sage is self-sufficient, since he has (by being wise) the wealth of all men (8o). | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 1 | |
A reaction: [He cites Caizzi for the fragments] The distinctive idea here is (I think) that once acquired virtue can never be lost. It sounds plausible, but I'm wondering why it should be true. Is it like riding a bicycle, or like learning to speak Russian? |
2631 | Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature [Antisthenes (I), by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Antisthenes says there is only one god, which is nature. | |
From: report of Antisthenes (Ath) (fragments/reports [c.405 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.32 |