3 ideas
| 8800 | If you would deny a truth if you know the full evidence, then knowledge has social aspects [Harman, by Sosa] |
| Full Idea: If one reads of a genuine assassination, but then fails to read the reports next day which untruthfully deny the event, one probably does not know of the event. But we must conclude that knowledge has a further 'social aspect'. | |
| From: report of Gilbert Harman (Induction [1970], §IV) by Ernest Sosa - The Raft and the Pyramid Appx | |
| A reaction: I doubt if this is enough to support an externalist account of defeasibility. Wise people don't 'know' of an event after one report. For 24 hours the Royalists thought they had won Marston Moor! You know he's dead when you see the Zapruder film. |
| 3643 | The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body. | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225) | |
| A reaction: A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious. |
| 6386 | In no important way can psychology be reduced to the physical sciences [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: There is no important sense in which psychology can be reduced to the physical sciences. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (The Material Mind [1973], p.259) | |
| A reaction: In no 'important' way can the beauty of the Lake District be reduced to geology - but it is geology. 'Important' to whom? To a metaphysician, I would say psychology does reduce to physics, and that is important, but it is not important to a psychologist. |