Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Philosophical Essay on Probability', 'The Basing Relation' and 'The Human Animal'

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6 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
19696 There are reasons 'for which' a belief is held, reasons 'why' it is believed, and reasons 'to' believe it [Neta]
     Full Idea: We must distinguish between something's being a 'reason for which' a creature believes something, and its being a 'reason why' a creature believes something. ...We must also distinguish a 'reason for which' from a 'reason to' believe something.
     From: Ram Neta (The Basing Relation [2011], Intro)
     A reaction: He doesn't spell the distinctions out clearly. I take it that 'for which' is my personal justification, 'why' is the dodgy prejudices that cause my belief. and 'to' is some actual good reasons, of which I may be unaware.
19697 The basing relation of a reason to a belief should both support and explain the belief [Neta]
     Full Idea: A reason has a 'basing relation' with a belief if it (i) rationally supports holding the belief, and (ii) explains why the belief is held.
     From: Ram Neta (The Basing Relation [2011], Intro)
     A reaction: Presumably a false reason would fit this account. Why not talk of 'grounding', or is that word now reserved for metaphysics? If I hypnotise you into a belief, would my hypnotic power be the basing reason? Fits (ii), but not (i).
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 7. Testimony
7458 The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking]
     Full Idea: The credibility of a witness is in part a function of the story being reported. When the story claims to have infinite value, the temptation to lie for personal benefit is asymptotically infinite.
     From: report of Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820], Ch.XI) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.8
     A reaction: Laplace seems to especially have reports of miracles in mind. This observation certainly dashes any dreams one might have of producing a statistical measure of the reliability of testimony.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 7. Self and Body / a. Self needs body
16236 Maybe our persistence conditions concern bodies, rather than persons [Olson, by Hawley]
     Full Idea: Instead of attributing person-like persistence conditions to bodies, we could attribute body-like persistence conditions to persons, …so human persons are identical with human organisms.
     From: report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.10
     A reaction: In the case of pre-birth and advanced senility, Olson thinks we could have the body without the person, so person is a 'phase sortal' of bodies. A good theory, which seems to answer a lot of questions. 'Person' may be an abstraction.
6669 For 'animalism', I exist before I became a person, and can continue after it, so I am not a person [Olson, by Lowe]
     Full Idea: According to 'animalism', I existed before I was a person and I may well go one existing for some time after I cease to be a person; hence, I am not essentially a person, but a human organism.
     From: report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.10
     A reaction: There is a very real sense in which an extremely senile person has 'ceased to exist' (e.g. as the person I used to love). On the whole, though, I think that Olson is right, and yet 'person' is an important concept. Neither concept is all-or-nothing.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
3441 If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace]
     Full Idea: An intelligence knowing at an instant the whole universe could know the movement of the largest bodies and atoms in one formula, provided his intellect were powerful enough to subject all data to analysis. Past and future would be present to his eyes.
     From: Pierre Simon de Laplace (Philosophical Essay on Probability [1820]), quoted by Mark Thornton - Do we have free will? p.70