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All the ideas for 'Philosophical Explanations', 'Mechanism, purpose and explan. exclusion' and 'thirty titles (lost)'

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5 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
Speusippus suggested underlying principles for every substance, and ended with a huge list [Speussipus, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Speusippus suggested principles for each substance, including principles for numbers, magnitude and the soul. He thus arrived at no mean list of substances.
     From: report of Speussipus (thirty titles (lost) [c.367 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
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
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 4. Tracking the Facts
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.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / a. Explanation
Explanatory exclusion: there cannot be two separate complete explanations of a single event [Kim]
     Full Idea: The general principle of explanatory exclusion states that two or more complete and independent explanations of the same event or phenomenon cannot coexist.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Mechanism, purpose and explan. exclusion [1989], 3)
     A reaction: This is a rather optimistic view of explanations, with a strong element of reality involved. I would have thought there were complete explanations at different 'levels', which were complementary to one another.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Speusippus said things were governed by some animal force rather than the gods [Speussipus, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: Speusippus, following his uncle Plato, held that all things were governed by some kind of animal force, and tried to eradicate from our minds any notion of the gods.
     From: report of Speussipus (thirty titles (lost) [c.367 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.33