Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Problem of Knowledge' and 'A Study of Concepts'

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21 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 13. Against Definition
Most people can't even define a chair [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Ordinary speakers are notoriously unsuccessful if asked to offer an explicit definition of the concept 'chair'.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.1)
2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 1. Fallacy
Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer]
     Full Idea: In all inductive reasoning we make the assumption that there is a measure of uniformity in nature; or, roughly speaking, that the future will, in the appropriate respects, resemble the past.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
     A reaction: I would say that nature is 'stable'. Nature changes, so a global assumption of total uniformity is daft. Do we need some global uniformity assumptions, if the induction involved is local? I would say yes. Are all inductions conditional on this?
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 5. Cogito Critique
To say 'I am not thinking' must be false, but it might have been true, so it isn't self-contradictory [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To say 'I am not thinking' is self-stultifying since if it is said intelligently it must be false: but it is not self-contradictory. The proof that it is not self-contradictory is that it might have been false.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
     A reaction: If it doesn't imply a contradiction, then it is not a necessary truth, which is what it is normally taken to be. Is 'This is a sentence' necessarily true? It might not have been one, if the rules of English syntax changed recently.
'I know I exist' has no counterevidence, so it may be meaningless [Ayer]
     Full Idea: If there is no experience at all of finding out that one is not conscious, or that one does not exist, ..it is tempting to say that sentences like 'I exist', 'I am conscious', 'I know that I exist' do not express genuine propositions.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
     A reaction: This is, of course, an application of the somewhat discredited verification principle, but the fact that strictly speaking the principle has been sort of refuted does not mean that we should not take it seriously, and be influenced by it.
Knowing I exist reveals nothing at all about my nature [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To know that one exists is not to know anything about oneself any more than knowing that 'this' exists is knowing anything about 'this'.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
     A reaction: Descartes proceeds to define himself as a 'thinking thing', inferring that thinking is his essence. Ayer casts nice doubt on that.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
Perceptual concepts causally influence the content of our experiences [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Once a thinker has acquired a perceptually individuated concept, his possession of that concept can causally influence what contents his experiences possess.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3)
     A reaction: Like having 35 different words for 'snow', I suppose. I'm never convinced by such claims. Having the concepts may well influence what you look at or listen to, but I don't see the deliverances of the senses being changed by the concepts.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
Perception has proto-propositions, between immediate experience and concepts [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Perceptual experience has a second layer of nonconceptual representational content, distinct from immediate 'scenarios' and from conceptual contents. These additional contents I call 'protopropositions', containing an individual and a property/relation.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3)
     A reaction: When philosophers start writing this sort of thing, I want to turn to neuroscience and psychology. I suppose the philosopher's justification for this sort of speculation is epistemological, but I see no good coming of it.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification
We only discard a hypothesis after one failure if it appears likely to keep on failing [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Why should a hypothesis which has failed the test be discarded unless this shows it to be unreliable; that is, having failed once it is likely to fail again? There is no contradiction in a hypothesis that was falsified being more likely to pass in future.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
     A reaction: People may become more likely to pass a test after they have failed at the first attempt. Birds which fail to fly at the first attempt usually achieve total mastery of it. There are different types of hypothesis here.
14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction
Induction passes from particular facts to other particulars, or to general laws, non-deductively [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Inductive reasoning covers all cases in which we pass from a particular statement of fact, or set of them, to a factual conclusion which they do not formally entail. The inference may be to a general law, or by analogy to another particular instance.
     From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
     A reaction: My preferred definition is 'learning from experience' - which I take to be the most rational behaviour you could possibly imagine. I don't think a definition should be couched in terms of 'objects' or 'particulars'.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
Consciousness of a belief isn't a belief that one has it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: I dispute the view that consciousness of a belief consists in some kind of belief that one has the belief.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.2)
     A reaction: Thus if one is trying to grasp the notion of higher-order thought, it doesn't have to be just more of same but one level up. Any sensible view of the brain would suggest that one sort of activity would lead into an entirely different sort.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / b. Concepts in philosophy
Philosophy should merely give necessary and sufficient conditions for concept possession [Peacocke, by Machery]
     Full Idea: Peacocke's 'Simple Account' says philosophers should determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for possessing a concept, and psychologists should explain how the human mind meets these conditions.
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2
     A reaction: One can't restrict philosophy so easily. Psychologists could do that job themselves, and dump philosophy. Philosophy is interested in the role of concepts in meaning, experience and judgement. If psychologists can contribute to philosophy, fine.
Peacocke's account of possession of a concept depends on one view of counterfactuals [Peacocke, by Machery]
     Full Idea: Peacocke's method for discovering the possession conditions of concepts is committed to a specific account of counterfactual judgements - the Simulation Model (judgements we'd make if the antecedent were actual).
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.4
     A reaction: Machery concludes that the Simulation Model is incorrect. This appears to be Edgington's theory of conditionals, though Machery doesn't mention her.
Peacocke's account separates psychology from philosophy, and is very sketchy [Machery on Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Peacocke's Simple Account fails to connect the psychology and philosophy of concepts, it subordinates psychology to specific field of philosophy, it is committed to analytic/synthetic, and (most important) its method is very sketchy.
     From: comment on Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.5
     A reaction: Machery says Peacocke proposes a research programme, and he is not surprised that no one has every followed. Machery is a well-known champion of 'experimental philosophy', makes philosophy respond to the psychology.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
Possessing a concept is being able to make judgements which use it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: Possession of any concept requires the capacity to make judgements whose content contain it.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 2.1)
     A reaction: Idea 12575 suggested that concept possession was an ability just to think about the concept. Why add that one must actually be able to make a judgement? Presumably to get truth in there somewhere. I may only speculate and fantasise, rather than judge.
A concept is just what it is to possess that concept [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: There can be no more to a concept than is determined by a correct account of what it is to possess that concept.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.2)
     A reaction: He calls this the Principle of Dependence. An odd idea, if you compare 'there is no more to a book than its possession conditions'. If the principle is right, I struggle with the proposal that a philosopher might demonstrate such a principle.
Employing a concept isn't decided by introspection, but by making judgements using it [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: On the account I have been developing, what makes it the case that someone is employing one concept rather than another is not constituted by his impression of whether he is, but by complex facts about explanations of his judgements.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 7.2)
     A reaction: I presume this brings truth into the picture, and hence establishes a link between the concept and the external world, rather than merely with other concepts. There seems to be a shadowy behaviourism lurking in the background.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / b. Analysis of concepts
An analysis of concepts must link them to something unconceptualized [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: At some point a good account of conceptual mastery must tie the mastery to abilities and relations that do not require conceptualization by the thinker.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 5.3)
     A reaction: This obviously implies a physicalist commitment. Peacocke seeks, as so many do these days in philosophy of maths, to combine this commitment with some sort of Fregean "platonism without tears" (p.101). I don't buy it.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / f. Theory theory of concepts
Concepts are constituted by their role in a group of propositions to which we are committed [Peacocke, by Greco]
     Full Idea: Peacocke argues that it may be a condition of possessing a certain concept that one be fundamentally committed to certain propositions which contain it. A concept is constituted by playing a specific role in the cognitive economy of its possessor.
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal §9
     A reaction: Peacocke is talking about thought and propositions rather than language. Good for him. I always have problems with this sort of view: how can something play a role if it doesn't already have intrinsic properties to make the role possible?
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
A concept's reference is what makes true the beliefs of its possession conditions [Peacocke, by Horwich]
     Full Idea: Peacocke has a distinctive view of reference: The reference of a concept is that which will make true the primitively compelling beliefs that provide its possession conditions.
     From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §9
     A reaction: The first thought is that there might occasionally be more than one referent which would do the job. It seems to be a very internal view of reference, where I take reference to be much more contextual and social.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
     From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.