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12741
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If experience is just a dream, it is still real enough if critical reason is never deceived [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Even if this whole life were said to be only a dream, and the visible world only a phantasm, I should call this dream or phantasm real enough if we were never deceived by it when we make good use of reason.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
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A reaction:
I find this response more satisfactory than his response in Idea 12740. As a supporter of the coherence account of justification, I take the closest we get to knowledge to be when our full critical faculties and experience are brought to bear, and shared.
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12740
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The strongest criterion that phenomena show reality is success in prediction [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
The most powerful criterion of the reality of phenomena, sufficient even by itself, is success in predicting future phenomena from past and present ones.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1502), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
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A reaction:
I would say that this is clutching at straws, as there is no reason at all to deny that dreams could be thoroughly coherent and predictable in their events. We must just live with these doubts, not try to defeat them.
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12721
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Light, heat and colour are apparent qualities, and so are motion, figure and extension [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Concerning bodies I can demonstrate that not merely light, heat, color, and similar qualities are apparent but also motion, figure, and extension.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (De modo distinguendi phaenomena [1685], A6.4.1504), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
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A reaction:
Leibniz is not consistent on this. Here he is flirting with idealism, but he often backs away from that. In Discourse §12 he makes secondary qualities certainly subjective, and primary qualities possibly so. He admits the primaries contain eternal truths.
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7519
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Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM]
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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.
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From:
Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
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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.
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7520
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Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM]
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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.
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From:
Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
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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.
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