9 ideas
8851 | Coherentists say that regress problems are assuming 'linear' justification [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: From the point of view of the coherentist, Agrippa's Dilemma fails because it presupposes a 'linear' conception of justifying inference. | |
From: Michael Williams (Without Immediate Justification [2005], §2) | |
A reaction: [He cites Bonjour 1985 for this view] Since a belief may have several justifications, and one belief could justify a host of others, there certainly isn't a simple line of justifications. I agree with the coherentist picture here. |
8849 | Traditional foundationalism is radically internalist [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Traditional foundationalism is radically internalist. The justification-making factors for beliefs, basic and otherwise, are all open to view, and perhaps even actual objects of awareness. I am always in a position to know that I know. | |
From: Michael Williams (Without Immediate Justification [2005], §1) | |
A reaction: This is a helpful if one is trying to draw a map of the debate. An externalist foundationalism would have to terminate in the external fact which was the object of knowledge (via some reliable channel), but that is the truth, not the justification. |
8853 | Basic judgements are immune from error because they have no content [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Basic judgements threaten to buy their immunity from error at the cost of being drained of descriptive content altogether. | |
From: Michael Williams (Without Immediate Justification [2005], §4) | |
A reaction: This is probably the key objection to foundationalism. As you import sufficient content into basic experiences to enable them to actually justify a set of beliefs, you find you have imported all sorts of comparisons and classifications as well. |
8855 | Sensory experience may be fixed, but it can still be misdescribed [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The fact that experiential contents cannot be other than they are, as far as sensory awareness goes, does not imply that we cannot misdescribe them, as in misreporting the number of speckles on a speckled hen (Chisholm's example). | |
From: Michael Williams (Without Immediate Justification [2005], §4) | |
A reaction: [Chisholm 1942 is cited] Such experiences couldn't be basic beliefs if there was a conflict between their intrinsic nature and the description I used in discussing them. |
8852 | In the context of scepticism, externalism does not seem to be an option [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: In the peculiar context of the skeptical challenge, it is easy to persuade oneself that externalism is not an option. | |
From: Michael Williams (Without Immediate Justification [2005], §3) | |
A reaction: This is because externalism sees justification as largely non-conscious, but when faced with scepticism, the justifications need to be spelled out, and therefore internalised. So are sceptical discussions basic, or freakish anomalies? |
22363 | You have only begun to do real science when you can express it in numbers [Kelvin] |
Full Idea: When you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be. | |
From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 4.1 | |
A reaction: [Popular Lectures 1 p.73] Clearly the writer is a physicist! Astronomers discover objects, geologists discover structures, biologists reveal mechanisms. |
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. |
20644 | Energy has progressed from a mere formula, to a principle pervading all nature [Kelvin] |
Full Idea: The name 'energy', first used by Thomas Young, has come into use after it was raised from a mere formula of mathematical dynamics to become a principle pervading all nature, and guiding every field of science. | |
From: Lord Kelvin (Wm Thomson) (works [1881]), quoted by Peter Watson - Convergence 01 'Principle' | |
A reaction: [bit compressed] As far as I can see energy behaves exactly as if it were a substance, like water conserved in rainfalls, and yet it isn't a stuff, and seems to result from a process of abstraction. I take it to be one of the biggest mysteries in physics. |
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. |