15 ideas
| 9331 | How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't? |
| 9333 | A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified. |
| 9342 | Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional. |
| 9332 | Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it. |
| 9341 | Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge. |
| 9334 | If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9) | |
| A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate. |
| 9339 | A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11) | |
| A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away. |
| 5673 | If we have a pain, we are strongly aware of the bodily self [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: Since sensations such as pain generally present themselves as in some part of one's body, the bodily self seems to be anything but elusive in sensory awareness. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really good observation. Whenever we do Hume's experiment in introspection, we tend to examine either pure sense experiences or abstract ideas. If we introspect a pain, we actually find the body at the centre of activity. |
| 5670 | Knowledge of thoughts covers both their existence and their contents [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: Our knowledge of our thoughts includes both our knowledge that we think and our knowledge of the contents of our thought. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a simple, self-evident and true distinction. We might question the first part, though. Knowledge involves the contents, but the fact that we think may be an inference from the contents, or even a fictional abstraction. Contents alone? |
| 5671 | Outer senses are as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: It would be quite legitimate to claim that the outer senses are at least as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting to speculate about the extent to which a 'mind in a void' could have a personal identity. Experiences tend to be 'mine' because of my body, which has a history and a space-time location. But this doesn't make identity entirely cultural. |
| 5672 | Is there a mode of self-awareness that isn't perception, and could it give self-knowledge? [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: The key questions are: can one be introspectively aware of oneself other than through an inner sense, and, if there is a non-perceptual mode of introspective self-awareness, can it be the ground or basis of one's self-knowledge? | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: Perception would involve a controlled attempt to experience a separate object. The other mode would presumably be more direct. The question boils down to 'is there an object which introspection can attempt to perceive?' Good question. |
| 5675 | Neither self-consciousness nor self-reference require self-knowledge [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: According to Kant, self-consciousness does not require self-knowledge, and it also appears that self-reference does not require self-knowledge. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §II) | |
| A reaction: Kant's point is that knowledge requires a stage of conceptualisation, which simple self-consciousness might not involve. The second point is that self-reference require no knowledge because error is impossible. Two nice points, and useful distinctions. |
| 5674 | We can't introspect ourselves as objects, because that would involve possible error [Cassam] |
| Full Idea: One can identify an object in a mirror as oneself, but that brings with it the possibility of misidentification, so since introspective awareness statements are immune to error, one is not introspectively aware of oneself as an object. | |
| From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
| A reaction: As a pure argument this looks weak. There could be two sorts of knowledge of objects, one admitting possible error, the other not. Introspecting pain appears to be awareness of oneself as an object. Planning my future needs my body. |
| 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. |