17 ideas
19544 | Closure says if you know P, and also know P implies Q, then you must know Q [Dretske] |
Full Idea: Closure is the epistemological principle that if S knows that P is true and knows that P implies Q, then, evidentially speaking, this is enough for S to know that Q is true. Nothing more is needed. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.25) | |
A reaction: [Dretske was the first to raise this issue] It is 'closure' because it applies to every case of Q, which is every implication of P that is known. The issue is whether we really do know all such Qs. Dretske doubts it. See his zebra case. |
19545 | We needn't regret the implications of our regrets; regretting drinking too much implies the past is real [Dretske] |
Full Idea: One doesn't have to regret everything one knows to be implied by what one regrets. Tom regrets drinking three martinis, but doesn't regret what he knows to be implied by this - that he drank 'something', or that the past is real. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.28) | |
A reaction: A nice case of analogy! He's right about regret. Perceptual and inferential knowledge have different grounds. To deny inferential knowledge seems to be a denial that modus ponens can be a justification. But MP gives truth, not knowledge. |
19547 | Reasons for believing P may not transmit to its implication, Q [Dretske] |
Full Idea: Some reasons for believing P do not transmit to things, Q, known to be implied by P. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.29) | |
A reaction: That seems true enough. I see someone limping, but infer that their leg is damaged. The only question is whether I should accept the inference. How can I accept that inference, but then back out of that knowledge? |
19546 | Knowing by visual perception is not the same as knowing by implication [Dretske] |
Full Idea: A way of knowing there are cookies in the jar - visual perception - is not a way of knowing what one knows to be implied by this - that visual appearances are not misleading. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.29) | |
A reaction: Why is the 'way of knowing' relevant? Isn't the only question that of whether implication of a truth is in infallible route to a truth (modus ponens)? If you know THAT it is true, then you must believe it, and implication is top quality justification. No? |
19548 | The only way to preserve our homely truths is to abandon closure [Dretske] |
Full Idea: The only way to preserve knowledge of homely truths, the truths everyone takes themselves to know, is to abandon closure. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.32) | |
A reaction: His point is that knowledge of homely truths seems to imply knowledge of the background facts needed to support them, which he takes to be an unreasonable requirement. I recommend pursuing contextualism, rather than abandoning closure. |
19549 | P may imply Q, but evidence for P doesn't imply evidence for Q, so closure fails [Dretske] |
Full Idea: The evidence that gives me knowledge of P (there are cookies in the jar) can exist without evidence for knowing Q (they are not fake), despite my knowing that P implies Q. So closure fails. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.33) | |
A reaction: His more famous example is the zebra. How can P imply Q if there is no evidence for Q? Maybe 'there are cookies in the jar' does not entail they are not fake, once you disambiguate what is being said? |
19550 | We know past events by memory, but we don't know the past is real (an implication) by memory [Dretske] |
Full Idea: The reality of the past (a 'heavyweight implication') ...is something we know to be implied by things we remember, but it is not itself something we remember. | |
From: Fred Dretske (The Case against Closure (and reply) [2005], p.35) | |
A reaction: If I begin to doubt that the past is real, then I must necessarily begin to doubt my ordinary memories. This seems to be the modus tollens of knowledge closure. Doesn't that imply that the modus ponens was valid, and closure is correct? |
3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
5673 | If we have a pain, we are strongly aware of the bodily self [Cassam] |
Full Idea: Since sensations such as pain generally present themselves as in some part of one's body, the bodily self seems to be anything but elusive in sensory awareness. | |
From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as a really good observation. Whenever we do Hume's experiment in introspection, we tend to examine either pure sense experiences or abstract ideas. If we introspect a pain, we actually find the body at the centre of activity. |
5670 | Knowledge of thoughts covers both their existence and their contents [Cassam] |
Full Idea: Our knowledge of our thoughts includes both our knowledge that we think and our knowledge of the contents of our thought. | |
From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
A reaction: This seems like a simple, self-evident and true distinction. We might question the first part, though. Knowledge involves the contents, but the fact that we think may be an inference from the contents, or even a fictional abstraction. Contents alone? |
5671 | Outer senses are as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge [Cassam] |
Full Idea: It would be quite legitimate to claim that the outer senses are at least as important as introspection in the acquisition of self-knowledge. | |
From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
A reaction: It is interesting to speculate about the extent to which a 'mind in a void' could have a personal identity. Experiences tend to be 'mine' because of my body, which has a history and a space-time location. But this doesn't make identity entirely cultural. |
5672 | Is there a mode of self-awareness that isn't perception, and could it give self-knowledge? [Cassam] |
Full Idea: The key questions are: can one be introspectively aware of oneself other than through an inner sense, and, if there is a non-perceptual mode of introspective self-awareness, can it be the ground or basis of one's self-knowledge? | |
From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
A reaction: Perception would involve a controlled attempt to experience a separate object. The other mode would presumably be more direct. The question boils down to 'is there an object which introspection can attempt to perceive?' Good question. |
5675 | Neither self-consciousness nor self-reference require self-knowledge [Cassam] |
Full Idea: According to Kant, self-consciousness does not require self-knowledge, and it also appears that self-reference does not require self-knowledge. | |
From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §II) | |
A reaction: Kant's point is that knowledge requires a stage of conceptualisation, which simple self-consciousness might not involve. The second point is that self-reference require no knowledge because error is impossible. Two nice points, and useful distinctions. |
5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
5674 | We can't introspect ourselves as objects, because that would involve possible error [Cassam] |
Full Idea: One can identify an object in a mirror as oneself, but that brings with it the possibility of misidentification, so since introspective awareness statements are immune to error, one is not introspectively aware of oneself as an object. | |
From: Quassim Cassam (Introduction to 'Self-Knowledge' [1994], §I) | |
A reaction: As a pure argument this looks weak. There could be two sorts of knowledge of objects, one admitting possible error, the other not. Introspecting pain appears to be awareness of oneself as an object. Planning my future needs my body. |
23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |