7 ideas
19566 | Epistemology does not just concern knowledge; all aspects of cognitive activity are involved [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: Epistemology is not just knowledge. There is enquiring, reasoning, changes of view, beliefs, assumptions, presuppositions, hypotheses, true beliefs, making sense, adequacy, understanding, wisdom, responsible enquiry, and so on. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'What') | |
A reaction: [abridged] Stop! I give in. His topic is whether truth is central to epistemology. Rivals seem to be knowledge-first, belief-first, and justification-first. I'm inclined to take justification as the central issue. Does it matter? |
19568 | Making sense of things, or finding a good theory, are non-truth-related cognitive successes [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: There are cognitive successes that are not obviously truth related, such as the concepts of making sense of the course of experience, and having found an empirically adequate theory. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
A reaction: He is claiming that truth is not the main aim of epistemology. He quotes Marian David for the rival view. Personally I doubt whether the concepts of 'making sense' or 'empirical adequacy' can be explicated without mentioning truth. |
12742 | A whole is just its parts, but there are no smallest parts, so only minds and perceptions exist [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The whole, if it is assumed to be body or matter, is nothing other than all of its parts; but this is absurd, since there aren't any smallest parts. Therefore there really exist only minds and their perceptions. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Calculus Ratiocinator [1679], A6.4.279), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7 | |
A reaction: Leibniz is sometimes labelled as an 'idealist', but this text is unusual in being so explicit, and he was mainly concerned to explain the reality of individual bodies. Monads were his final attempt to do this, not an attempt to escape into pure minds. |
19567 | The 'defeasibility' approach says true justified belief is knowledge if no undermining facts could be known [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: The 'defeasibility' approach says that having knowledge requires, in addition to justified true belief, there being no true information which, if learned, would result in the person in question no longer being justified in believing the claim. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
A reaction: I take this to be an externalist view, since it depends on information of which the cognizer may be unaware. A defeater may yet have an undiscovered counter-defeater. The only real defeater is the falsehood of the proposition. |
19570 | Reliabilism cannot assess the justification for propositions we don't believe [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: The most serious problem for reliabilism is that it cannot explain adequately the concept of propositional justification, the kind of justification one might have for a proposition one does not believe, or which one disbelieves. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], Notes 2) | |
A reaction: I don't understand this (though I pass it on anyway). Why can't the reliabilist just offer a critique of the reliability of the justification available for the dubious proposition? |
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. |