7 ideas
3570 | Maybe knowledge is belief which 'tracks' the truth [Nozick, by Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Nozick suggests that knowledge is just belief which 'tracks the truth' (hence leaving out justification). | |
From: report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981]) by Michael Williams - Problems of Knowledge Ch. 2 |
2614 | Modern phenomenalism holds that objects are logical constructions out of sense-data [Ayer] |
Full Idea: Nowadays phenomenalism is held to be a theory of perception which says that physical objects are logical constructions out of sense-data. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
2615 | The concept of sense-data allows us to discuss appearances without worrying about reality [Ayer] |
Full Idea: The introduction of the term 'sense-datum' is a means of referring to appearances without prejudging the question of what it is, if anything, that they are appearances of. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Phenomenalism [1947], §1) |
2748 | A true belief isn't knowledge if it would be believed even if false. It should 'track the truth' [Nozick, by Dancy,J] |
Full Idea: Nozick says Gettier cases aren't knowledge because the proposition would be believed even if false. Proper justification must be more sensitive to the truth ("track the truth"). | |
From: report of Robert Nozick (Philosophical Explanations [1981], 3.1) by Jonathan Dancy - Intro to Contemporary Epistemology 3.1 | |
A reaction: This is a bad idea. I see a genuine tree in my garden and believe it is there, so I know it. That I might have believed it if I was in virtually reality, or observing a mirror, won't alter that. |
3916 | Hopi consistently prefers verbs and events to nouns and things [Whorf] |
Full Idea: Hopi, with its preference for verbs, as contrasted to our own liking for nouns, perpetually turns our propositions about things into propositions about events. | |
From: Benjamin Lee Whorf (An American Indian model of the Universe [1936], p.63) | |
A reaction: This should provoke careful thought about ontology - without concluding that it is entirely relative to language. |
3917 | Scientific thought is essentially a specialised part of Indo-European languages [Whorf] |
Full Idea: What we call "scientific thought" is a specialisation of the western Indo-European type of language. | |
From: Benjamin Lee Whorf (An American Indian model of the Universe [1936], p.246) | |
A reaction: This is the beginnings of an absurd extreme relativist view of science, based on a confusion about meaning and thought. |
3915 | The Hopi have no concept of time as something flowing from past to future [Whorf] |
Full Idea: A Hopi has no general notion or intuition of time as a smooth flowing continuum in which everything in the universe proceeds at an equal rate, out of a future, through a present, into a past. | |
From: Benjamin Lee Whorf (An American Indian model of the Universe [1936], p.57) | |
A reaction: If true, this would not so much support relativism of language as the view that that conception of time is actually false. |