10 ideas
15575 | Knowledge is not a static set of correct propositions, but a continuing search for better interpretations [Polt] |
Full Idea: Thanks to Heidegger, hermeneutics has gained wider acceptance - that knowledge is not a static set of correct propositions, but a continuing search for better interpretations. | |
From: Richard Polt (Heidegger: an introduction [1999], 3.§7) | |
A reaction: I am not sure if I understand the notion of a search that has a refusal to actually find anything as one of its basic principles. |
21963 | It is possible that an omnipotent God might make one and two fail to equal three [Descartes] |
Full Idea: Since every basic truth depends on God's omnipotence, I would not dare to say that God cannot make it....that one and two should not be three. | |
From: René Descartes (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1645]), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 01.3 | |
A reaction: An unusual view. Most people would say that if Descartes can doubt something that simple, he should also doubt his reasons for believing in God's existence. |
15568 | When we consider possibilities, there must be something we are considering [Polt] |
Full Idea: We would hardly want to say that a possibility is nothing, since surely we are considering something when we consider possibilities. | |
From: Richard Polt (Heidegger: an introduction [1999], 1) | |
A reaction: A nice contribution to the issue of whether modality is a feature of actuality. I would prefer to say that we can self-evidently utter truths and falsehoods about what is or is not possible, in nature, in logic, and maybe in metaphysics. |
5662 | Maybe induction could never prove the existence of something unobservable [Ayer] |
Full Idea: Some people hold that no inductive argument can give us any reason to believe in the existence of something which could not even in principle be observed. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §I) | |
A reaction: I see nothing illogical in inferring the existence of a poltergeist from the recurrent flight of objects around my lounge. Only an excessive empiricism (which used to afflict Ayer) could lead to this claim. |
5664 | Consciousness must involve a subject, and only bodies identify subjects [Ayer] |
Full Idea: It may not make sense to talk of states of consciousness except as the experiences of some conscious subject; and it may well be that this conscious subject can not be identified except by reference to his body. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV) | |
A reaction: It strikes me that Ayer deserves more credit as a pioneer of this view. It tracks back to what may turn out to be the key difficulty for Descartes - how do you individuate a mental substance? I may identify me, but how do I identify you? |
5668 | People own conscious states because they are causally related to the identifying body [Ayer] |
Full Idea: I think personal identity depends on the identity of the body, and that a person's ownership of states of consciousness consists in their standing in a special causal relation to the body by which he is identified. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV) | |
A reaction: I think with this is right, with the slight reservation that Ayer talks as if there were two things which have a causal relationship, implying that the link is contingent. Better to think of the whole thing as a single causal network. |
5661 | We identify experiences by their owners, so we can't define owners by their experiences [Ayer] |
Full Idea: Normally we identify experiences in terms of the persons whose experiences they are; but this will lead to a vicious circle if persons themselves are to be analysed in terms of their experiences. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §I) | |
A reaction: This (from a leading empiricist) is a nice basic challenge to all empiricist accounts of personal identity. One might respond my saying that the circle is not vicious. There are two interlinked concepts (experience and persons), like day and night. |
5665 | Memory is the best proposal as what unites bundles of experiences [Ayer] |
Full Idea: The most promising suggestion is that the bundles are tied together by means of memory. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV) | |
A reaction: This is interesting for showing how Locke was essentially trying to meet (in advance) Hume's 'bundle' scepticism. Hume proposed associations as the unifying factor, instead of memories. Ayer proposes concepts as a candidate. |
5666 | Not all exerience can be remembered, as this would produce an infinite regress [Ayer] |
Full Idea: Not every experience can be remembered; otherwise each piece of remembering, which is itself an experience, would have to be remembered, and each remembering of a remembering and so ad infinitum. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV) | |
A reaction: See Idea 5667. Ayer takes for granted two sorts of consciousness - current awareness, and memory. Ayer brings out a nice difficulty for Locke's proposal, but also draws attention to what may be a very basic misunderstanding about the mind. |
5669 | Personal identity can't just be relations of experiences, because the body is needed to identify them [Ayer] |
Full Idea: A Humean theory, in which a person's identity is made to depend upon relations between experiences ..is not tenable unless the experiences themselves can be identified, and that is only possible through their association with the body. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (The Concept of a Person [1963], §IV) | |
A reaction: This seems to me a very fruitful response to difficulties with the 'bundle' view of a person - a better response than the a priori claims of Butler and Reid, or the transcendental argument of Kant. Only a philosopher could ignore the body. |