8 ideas
| 17896 | We need to know the meaning of 'and', prior to its role in reasoning [Prior,AN, by Belnap] |
| Full Idea: For Prior, so the moral goes, we must first have a notion of what 'and' means, independently of the role it plays as premise and as conclusion. | |
| From: report of Arthur N. Prior (The Runabout Inference Ticket [1960]) by Nuel D. Belnap - Tonk, Plonk and Plink p.132 | |
| A reaction: The meaning would be given by the truth tables (the truth-conditions), whereas the role would be given by the natural deduction introduction and elimination rules. This seems to be the basic debate about logical connectives. |
| 17898 | Prior's 'tonk' is inconsistent, since it allows the non-conservative inference A |- B [Belnap on Prior,AN] |
| Full Idea: Prior's definition of 'tonk' is inconsistent. It gives us an extension of our original characterisation of deducibility which is not conservative, since in the extension (but not the original) we have, for arbitrary A and B, A |- B. | |
| From: comment on Arthur N. Prior (The Runabout Inference Ticket [1960]) by Nuel D. Belnap - Tonk, Plonk and Plink p.135 | |
| A reaction: Belnap's idea is that connectives don't just rest on their rules, but also on the going concern of normal deduction. |
| 11021 | Prior rejected accounts of logical connectives by inference pattern, with 'tonk' his absurd example [Prior,AN, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Prior dislike the holism inherent in the claim that the meaning of a logical connective was determined by the inference patterns into which it validly fitted. ...His notorious example of 'tonk' (A → A-tonk-B → B) was a reductio of the view. | |
| From: report of Arthur N. Prior (The Runabout Inference Ticket [1960]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.8 | |
| A reaction: [The view being attacked was attributed to Gentzen] |
| 13836 | Maybe introducing or defining logical connectives by rules of inference leads to absurdity [Prior,AN, by Hacking] |
| Full Idea: Prior intended 'tonk' (a connective which leads to absurdity) as a criticism of the very idea of introducing or defining logical connectives by rules of inference. | |
| From: report of Arthur N. Prior (The Runabout Inference Ticket [1960], §09) by Ian Hacking - What is Logic? |
| 4760 | Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson] |
| Full Idea: Knowing is the best kind of believing. Mere believing is a kind of botched knowing. In short, belief aims at knowledge (not just truth). | |
| From: Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000], §1.5) | |
| A reaction: The difference between aiming at truth and aiming at knowledge has to be in the justificiation, so beliefs aim to be justified. Believers always aim at truth, but they can be strikingly relaxed about justification. |
| 19512 | Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose] |
| Full Idea: Williamson says that instead of being viewed as a concept to be analysed, knowledge should be seen as something useful in the analysis of all sorts of other concepts to epistemology - and to philosophy of mind as well. | |
| From: report of Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000]) by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.8 | |
| A reaction: I just don't believe this, because knowledge is obviously a complex state of mind, which invites breaking it down into ingredients. How could knowledge possibly be prior to truth? |
| 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. |