7 ideas
19542 | It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
Full Idea: The proposition that understanding does not involve knowledge is widespread (for example, in discussions of what philosophy aims at), but hardly withstands scrutiny. If you do not know how a jet engine works, you do not understand how it works. | |
From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.24) | |
A reaction: This seems a bit disingenuous. As in 'Theaetetus', knowing the million parts of a jet engine is not to understand it. More strongly - how could knowledge of an infinity of separate propositional truths amount to understanding on their own? |
19543 | To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
Full Idea: An essential prerequisite for useful discussion of the relation between knowledge and understanding is systematic explicitness about what is to be known or understood. | |
From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.25) | |
A reaction: This is better. I say what needs to be known for understanding is the essence of the item under discussion (my PhD thesis!). Obviously understanding needs some knowledge, but I take it that epistemology should be understanding-first. That is the main aim. |
19541 | Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
Full Idea: If we say our cognitive aim is to get knowledge, the opposing views are the naturalistic view that what matters is just true belief (or just 'getting by'), or that there are rival epistemic goods such as understanding and wisdom. | |
From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.17) | |
A reaction: [compressed summary] I'm a fan of understanding. The accumulation of propositional knowledge would relish knowing the mass of every grain of sand on a beach. If you say the propositions should be 'important', other values are invoked. |
21094 | There are two kinds of right - to power, and to property [Hume] |
Full Idea: Right is of two kinds: right to power and right to property. | |
From: David Hume (Of the First Principles of Government [1750], p.25) | |
A reaction: These seem to be positive rights. No mention of the right not be to unjustly abused. It is hard to find any sort of radical political thinking in Hume. His empirical scepticism extends to his politics. He approves of modern consitutional monarchy. |
21095 | It is an exaggeration to say that property is the foundation of all government [Hume] |
Full Idea: A noted author has made property the foundation of all government; and most of our political writers seem inclined to follow him in that particular. This is carrying the matter too far. | |
From: David Hume (Of the First Principles of Government [1750], p.25) | |
A reaction: This obviously refers to John Locke. Locke's idea strikes me as hideous. It says the foundation of government is the right of property owners to protect what they have against non-owners. It implies social exclusion in the constitution. |
13304 | 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. |
20820 | 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. |