5 ideas
| 12893 | Contextualism says sceptical arguments are true, relative to their strict context [Cohen,S] |
| Full Idea: Contextualism explains the appeal of sceptical arguments by allowing that the claims of the sceptic are true, relative to the very strict context in which they are made. | |
| From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended [2005], p.57) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me a right. I've always thought that global scepticism must be conceded if we are being very strict indeed about justification, but also that it is ridiculous to be that strict. So the epistemological question is 'How strict should we be?' |
| 12896 | Knowledge is context-sensitive, because justification is [Cohen,S] |
| Full Idea: The context-sensitivity of knowledge is inherited from one of its components, i.e. justification. | |
| From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended [2005], p.68) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right - that there is nothing relative or contextual about what is actually true, or what someone believes, but knowleddge is wholly relative because it rests on shifting standards of justification. |
| 12894 | There aren't invariant high standards for knowledge, because even those can be raised [Cohen,S] |
| Full Idea: The problem for invariantism is that competent speakers, under sceptical pressure, tend to deny that we know even the most conspicuous facts of perception, the clearest memories etc. | |
| From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended [2005], p.58) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed at Idea 12892. This seems to me a strong response to the rather weak invariantist case (that there is 'really and truly' only one invariant standard for knowledge). Full strength scepticism about everything demolishes all knowledge. |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |
| 18671 | The ground for an attitude is not a thing's 'goodness', but its concrete characteristics [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: The ground for an attitude lies not in some other ethical concept, goodness, but in the concrete, factual characteristics of what we pronounce good. ...We shall not be better off if we interpolate an indefinable characteristic of goodness besides. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (The Definition of Good [1948], p.172), quoted by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is a forerunner of Scanlon's Buck-Passing theory of the source of value (in other properties). I approve of this approach. If I say 'actually this very strong cheese is really good', I'm not adding goodness to the cheese. |