7 ideas
8886 | Being a true justified belief is not a sufficient condition for knowledge [Gettier] |
Full Idea: The claim that someone knows a proposition if it is true, it is believed, and the person is justified in their belief is false, in that the conditions do not state a sufficient condition for the claim. | |
From: Edmund L. Gettier (Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? [1963], p.145) | |
A reaction: This is the beginning of the famous Gettier Problem, which has motivated most epistemology for the last forty years. Gettier implies that justification is necessary, even if it is not sufficient. He gives two counterexamples. |
7518 | If folk psychology gives a network of causal laws, that fits neatly with functionalism [Churchland,PM] |
Full Idea: The portrait of folk psychology as a network of causal laws dovetailed neatly with the emerging philosophy of mind called functionalism. | |
From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], II) | |
A reaction: And from the lower levels functionalism is supported by the notion that the brain is modular. Note the word 'laws'; this implies an underlying precision in folk psychology, which is then easily attacked. Maybe the network is too complex for simple laws. |
7519 | Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM] |
Full Idea: Folk psychology fails utterly to explain a considerable variety of central psychological phenomena: mental illness, sleep, creativity, memory, intelligence differences, and many forms of learning, to cite just a few. | |
From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III) | |
A reaction: If folk psychology is a theory, it will have been developed to predict behaviour, rather than as a full-blown psychological map. The odd thing is that some people seem to be very bad at folk psychology. |
7520 | Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM] |
Full Idea: Folk psychology has not progressed significantly in the last 2500 years; if anything, it has been steadily in retreat during this period; it does not integrate with modern science, and its emerging wallflower status bodes ill for its future. | |
From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III) | |
A reaction: [compressed] However, while shares in alchemy and astrology have totally collapsed, folk psychology shows not the slightest sign of going away, and it is unclear how it ever could. See Idea 3177. |
21785 | We are only free, with rights, if we claim our freedom, and there are no natural rights [Hegel, by Houlgate] |
Full Idea: Hegel says we are only truly free, and so bearers of rights, in so far as we claim our freedom. ...So there are no merely natural rights, and animal's have no rights. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819], p.78) by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights' | |
A reaction: If there are no natural rights, then it is hard to see how claiming a right will create it. I can't create a right to drink the best champagne. It seems particularly unjust to deny rights to people so enslaved that freedom has never occurred to them. |
22041 | Representatives by region ignores whether they care about the national interest [Hegel, by Pinkard] |
Full Idea: Selecting representatives on the basis of geography means selecting people without any regard to whether they represent the basic and important interests of the 'whole' of society. | |
From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 11 | |
A reaction: Proportional representation seems to get away from this, but that can still be arranged according to large regions. Some means is needed to prevent the whole nation from exploitation a regional minority (such as Welsh speakers). |
21781 | The absolute right is the right to have rights [Hegel] |
Full Idea: The absolute right is the right to have rights. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the Philosophy of Right [1819], p.127), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 08 'Rights' | |
A reaction: What a beautifully succinct and important idea! Does a foetus, or a dog, or a person in a vegetative state, or a slave, qualify? |