Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Particulars in Particular Clothing', 'Folk Psychology' and 'The Case for Closure'

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8 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
18431 Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards]
     Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes.
     From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5
     A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials?
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 2. Common Sense Certainty
19553 Commitment to 'I have a hand' only makes sense in a context where it has been doubted [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: If I utter 'I know I have a hand' then I can only be reckoned a cooperative conversant by my interlocutors on the assumption that there was a real question as to whether I have a hand.
     From: John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 2)
     A reaction: This seems to point to the contextualist approach to global scepticism, which concerns whether we are setting the bar high or low for 'knowledge'.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / c. Knowledge closure
19551 How can we know the heavyweight implications of normal knowledge? Must we distort 'knowledge'? [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Those who deny skepticism but accept closure will have to explain how we know the various 'heavyweight' skeptical hypotheses to be false. Do we then twist the concept of knowledge to fit the twin desiderata of closue and anti-skepticism?
     From: John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: [He is giving Dretske's view; Dretske says we do twist knowledge] Thus if I remember yesterday, that has the heavyweight implication that the past is real. Hawthorne nicely summarises why closure produces a philosophical problem.
19552 We wouldn't know the logical implications of our knowledge if small risks added up to big risks [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Maybe one cannot know the logical consequences of the proposition that one knows, on account of the fact that small risks add up to big risks.
     From: John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 1)
     A reaction: The idea of closure is that the new knowledge has the certainty of logic, and each step is accepted. An array of receding propositions can lose reliability, but that shouldn't apply to logic implications. Assuming monotonic logic, of course.
19554 Denying closure is denying we know P when we know P and Q, which is absurd in simple cases [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: How could we know that P and Q but not be in a position to know that P (as deniers of closure must say)? If my glass is full of wine, we know 'g is full of wine, and not full of non-wine'. How can we deny that we know it is not full of non-wine?
     From: John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 2)
     A reaction: Hawthorne merely raises this doubt. Dretske is concerned with heavyweight implications, but how do you accept lightweight implications like this one, and then suddenly reject them when they become too heavy? [see p.49]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
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.