16 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? |
| 18465 | An 'equivalence' relation is one which is reflexive, symmetric and transitive [Kunen] |
| Full Idea: R is an equivalence relation on A iff R is reflexive, symmetric and transitive on A. | |
| From: Kenneth Kunen (The Foundations of Mathematics (2nd ed) [2012], I.7.1) |
| 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. |
| 21506 | A coherence theory of justification can combine with a correspondence theory of truth [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: There is no manifest absurdity in combining a coherence theory of justification with a correspondence theory of truth. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: His point is to sharply (and correctly) distinguish coherent justification from a coherence theory of truth. Personally I would recommend talking of a 'robust' theory of truth, without tricky commitment to 'correspondence' between very dissimilar things. |
| 21509 | There will always be a vast number of equally coherent but rival systems [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: On any plausible conception of coherence, there will always be many, probably infinitely many, different and incompatible systems of belief which are equally coherent. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: If 'infinitely many' theories are allowed, that blocks the coherentist hope that widening and precisifying the system will narrow down the options and offer some verisimilitude. If we stick to current English expression, that should keep them finite. |
| 21503 | Empirical coherence must attribute reliability to spontaneous experience [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: An empirical coherence theory needs, for the beliefs of a cognitive system to be even candidates for empirical justification, that the system must contain laws attributing a high degree of reliability to a variety of spontaneous cognitive beliefs. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: Wanting such a 'law' seems optimistic, and not in the spirit of true coherentism, which can individually evaluate each experiential belief. I'm not sure Bonjour's Observation Requirement is needed, since it is incoherent to neglect observations. |
| 21511 | A well written novel cannot possibly match a real belief system for coherence [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: It is not even minimally plausible that a well written novel ...would have the degree of coherence required to be a serious alternative to anyone's actual system of beliefs. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems correct. 'Bleak House' is wonderfully consistent, but its elements are entirely verbal, and nothing occupies the space between the facts that are described. And Lady Dedlock is not in Debrett. I think this kills a standard objection. |
| 21510 | The objection that a negated system is equally coherent assume that coherence is consistency [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes it is said that if one has an appropriately coherent system, an alternative system can be produced simply be negating all of the components of the first system. This would only be so if coherence amounted simply to consistency. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: I associate Russell with this original objection to coherentism. I formerly took this to be a serious problem, and am now relieved to see that it clearly isn't. |
| 21505 | A coherent system can be justified with initial beliefs lacking all credibility [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: It is simply not necessary in order for [the coherence] view to yield justification to suppose that cognitively spontaneous beliefs have some degree of initial or independent credibility. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: This is thoroughly and rather persuasively criticised by Erik Olson. But he always focuses on the coherence of a 'system' with multiple beliefs. I take the credibility of each individual belief to need coherent assessment against a full background. |
| 21504 | The best explanation of coherent observations is they are caused by and correspond to reality [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The best explanation for a stable system of beliefs which rely on observation is that the beliefs are caused by what they depict, and the system roughly corresponds to the independent reality it describes. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Anyone who links best explanation to coherence (and to induction) warms the cockles of my heart. Erik Olson offers a critique, but doesn't convince me. The alternative is to find a better explanation (than reality), or give up. |
| 21508 | Anomalies challenge the claim that the basic explanations are actually basic [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The distinctive significance of anomalies lies in the fact that they undermine the claim of the allegedly basic explanatory principles to be genuinely basic. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (The Structure of Empirical Knowledge [1985], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems plausible, suggesting that (rather than an anomaly flatly 'falsifying' a theory) an anomaly may just demand a restructuring or reconceptualising of the theory. |