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All the ideas for 'Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority', 'An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation' and 'works'

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13 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
9331 How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich]
     Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition?
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2)
     A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't?
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori
9333 A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich]
     Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8)
     A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 6. A Priori from Reason
9342 Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich]
     Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12)
     A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
9332 Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich]
     Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8)
     A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts
9341 Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich]
     Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12)
     A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge.
9334 If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich]
     Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9)
     A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 10. A Priori as Subjective
9339 A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich]
     Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic.
     From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11)
     A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
21500 We rely on memory for empirical beliefs because they mutually support one another [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: When the whole range of empirical beliefs is taken into account, all of them more or less dependent on memorial knowledge, we find that those which are most credible can be assured by their mutual support, or 'congruence'.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 334), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.1
     A reaction: Lewis may be over-confident about this, and is duly attacked by Olson, but it seems to me roughly correct. How do you assess whether some unusual element in your memory was a dream or a real experience?
21501 If we doubt memories we cannot assess our doubt, or what is being doubted [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: To doubt our sense of past experience as founded in actuality, would be to lose any criterion by which either the doubt itself or what is doubted could be corroborated.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 358), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 3.3.1
     A reaction: Obviously scepticism about memory can come in degrees, but total rejection of short-term and clear memories looks like a non-starter. What could you put in its place? Hyper-rationalism? Even maths needs memory.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism
6556 If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 186), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Intro
     A reaction: Lewis makes this comment when facing infinite regress problems. It is a very nice slogan for foundationalism, which embodies the slippery slope view. Personally I feel the emotional pull of foundations, but acknowledge the very strong doubts about them.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
21498 Congruents assertions increase the probability of each individual assertion in the set [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: A set of statements, or a set of supposed facts asserted, will be said to be congruent if and only if they are so related that the antecedent probability of any one of them will be increased if the remainder of the set can be assumed as given premises.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946], 338), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2
     A reaction: This thesis is vigorously attacked by Erik Olson, who works through the probability calculations. There seems an obvious problem without that. How else do you assess 'congruence', other than by evidence of mutual strengthening?
18. Thought / C. Content / 8. Intension
5828 Extension is the class of things, intension is the correct definition of the thing, and intension determines extension [Lewis,CI]
     Full Idea: "The denotation or extension of a term is the class of all actual or existent things which the term correctly applies to or names; the connotation or intension of a term is delimited by any correct definition of it." ..And intension determines extension.
     From: C.I. Lewis (An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation [1946]), quoted by Stephen P. Schwartz - Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds §II
     A reaction: The last part is one of the big ideas in philosophy of language, which was rejected by Putnam and co. If you were to reverse the slogan, though, (to extension determines intension) how would you identify the members of the extension?
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 8. Socialism
23137 Liberty without socialism is injustice; socialism without liberty is brutality [Bakunin]
     Full Idea: Liberty without socialism is injustice; socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.
     From: Mikhail Bakunin (works [1867], 3), quoted by Adam Gopnik - A Thousand Small Sanities 3
     A reaction: [1867, but no reference] Bakunin was an anarchistic socialist. This must be the best one-line defence of socialism ever written. Gopnik quotes it as part of the anarchist critique of liberalism. So are liberty and socialism long-term compatible?