3 ideas
| 6445 | You have knowledge if you can rule out all the relevant alternatives to what you believe [Dretske, by DeRose] |
| Full Idea: The 'Relevant Alternatives' theory of knowledge said the main ingredient that must be added to true belief to make knowledge is that one be in a position to rule out all the relevant alternatives to what one believes. | |
| From: report of Fred Dretske (Epistemic Operators [1970]) by Keith DeRose - Intro: Responding to Skepticism §6 | |
| A reaction: Dretske and Nozick are associated with this strategy. There will obviously be a problem in defining 'relevant'. Otherwise it sounds quite close to Plato's suggestion that we need true belief with 'logos'. |
| 5963 | Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers make the emotions varieties of reason, on the ground that all desire and grief and anger are judgments, while others declare that the virtues have to do with emotions, as when fear is the province of courage. | |
| From: Plutarch (68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' [c.85], 1025d) | |
| A reaction: The second idea comes from Aristotle, but the second is interesting, and corresponds to the views coming from modern neuroscience, where even the most basic thought seems to involve emotion. What could be the motivation for 'pure' reason? |
| 16383 | Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke] |
| Full Idea: In Kripke's puzzle about belief, the subject has two distinct mental files about one and the same object. | |
| From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (A Puzzle about Belief [1979]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 17.1 | |
| A reaction: [Pierre distinguishes 'London' from 'Londres'] The Kripkean puzzle is presented as very deep, but I have always felt there was a simple explanation, and I suspect that this is it (though I will leave the reader to think it through, as I'm very busy…). |