4 ideas
| 9355 | One sort of circularity presupposes a premise, the other presupposes a rule being used [Braithwaite, by Devitt] |
| Full Idea: An argument is 'premise-circular' if it aims to establish a conclusion that is assumed as a premise of that very argument. An argument is 'rule-circular' if it aims to establish a conclusion that asserts the goodness of the rule used in that argument. | |
| From: report of R.B. Braithwaite (Scientific Explanation [1953], p.274-8) by Michael Devitt - There is no a Priori §2 | |
| A reaction: Rule circularity is the sort of thing Quine is always objecting to, but such circularities may be unavoidable, and even totally benign. All the good things in life form a mutually supporting team. |
| 19565 | How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality? [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: What non-experiential link to reality could support insights into its necessary character? | |
| From: Michael Devitt (There is No A Priori (and reply) [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: The key to it, I think, is your theory of mind. If you are a substance dualist, then connecting to such deep things looks fine, but if you are a reductive physicalist then it looks absurdly hopeful. |
| 19564 | Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt] |
| Full Idea: It is overwhelmingly plausible that some knowledge is empirical. The attractive thesis of naturalism is that all knowledge is; there is only one way of knowing. | |
| From: Michael Devitt (There is No A Priori (and reply) [2005], 1) | |
| A reaction: How many ways for us to know seems to depend on what faculties we have. We lump our senses together under a single heading. The arrival of data is not the same as the arrival of knowledge. I'm unconvinced that naturalists like me must accept this. |
| 20761 | If existence is absurd it can never have a meaning [Beauvoir] |
| Full Idea: To declare that existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed. | |
| From: Simone de Beauvoir (Ethics of Ambiguity [1948], p.129), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Bad' | |
| A reaction: Absurdity precludes meaning, but being meaningless doesn't entail absurdity. Asteroids are meaningless. Presumably if existence is meaningless now (as in a depression), but it might possibly become meaningful, then it can't qualify as 'absurd'. |