13 ideas
| 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? |
| 7661 | Truth is the opinion fated to be ultimately agreed by all investigators [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (How to Make our Ideas Clear [1878], p.38) | |
| A reaction: At least this affirms that truth is an ideal about which we dream, and is not confined merely to what we can actually know. But it rules out anything beyond the reach of all investigation, which seems a misconception of truth. What could angels know? |
| 16285 | A possible world can be seen as a complete and consistent novel [Jeffrey] |
| Full Idea: A novel describes a possible world in as much detail as is possible without exceeding the resources of the agent's language. But if talk of possible worlds seems dangerously metaphysical, focus on the novels themselves, when complete and consistent. | |
| From: Richard Jeffrey (The Logic of Decision [1965], 12.8), quoted by David Lewis - On the Plurality of Worlds | |
| A reaction: Lewis seems to cite this remark from Jeffrey as the source of the idea that ersatz linguistic worlds are like novels. Why won't a novel with one tiny inconsistency count as a possible world? People seem to live in it. |
| 19089 | Our whole conception of an object is its possible practical consequences [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the objects of our conceptions to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (How to Make our Ideas Clear [1878], EP i.132), quoted by Albert Atkin - Peirce 2 'early' | |
| A reaction: This is his 1878 version, which was fine-tuned later in life. He seems to have extended his principle to include possibilities, as well as the mere objects. That is, he moved beyond mere nominalism. |
| 7660 | We are aware of beliefs, they appease our doubts, and they are rules of action, or habits [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: A belief has just three properties: first, it is something that we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and, third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say for short, a habit. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (How to Make our Ideas Clear [1878], p.28) | |
| A reaction: Peirce probably believed that Bismarck breathed oxygen, but was unaware of his belief, and no one ever dreamed of acting on such a belief, unless Bismarck was gasping for air. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 19155 | Instead of gambling, Jeffrey made the objects of Bayesian preference to be propositions [Jeffrey, by Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Jeffrey produced a version of Bayesianism that made no direct use of gambling (as Ramsey had), but treats the objects of preference ...as propositions. | |
| From: report of Richard Jeffrey (The Logic of Decision [1965]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 3 | |
| A reaction: I'm guessing that Jeffreys launched modern Bayesian theory with this idea. It suggest that one can consider degrees of truth, rather than mere winning or losing. |
| 14906 | Non-positivist verificationism says only take a hypothesis seriously if it is scientifically based and testable [Ladyman/Ross on Peirce] |
| Full Idea: With Peirce, we endorse a non-positivist version of verificationism - no hypothesis should be taken seriously if apparently beyond our capacity to investigate, and serious metaphysics must concern at least two plausible scientific hypotheses. | |
| From: comment on Charles Sanders Peirce (How to Make our Ideas Clear [1878]) by J Ladyman / D Ross - Every Thing Must Go 1.3 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] They say this is NOT a theory about meaning, as 'The Big Bang was caused by Elvis' is perfectly meaningful. Verificationism always seems to rule out bold speculation. Don't say 'take string theory seriously', if we can't test it? |