Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Gettier Problem', 'The Barcan Formula and Metaphysics' and 'Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals''

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8 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 7. Barcan Formula
The Barcan Formulas express how to combine modal operators with classical quantifiers [Simchen]
     Full Idea: The Barcan Formula and its converse gives expression to the most straightforward way of combining modal operators with classical quantification.
     From: Ori Simchen (The Barcan Formula and Metaphysics [2013], §1)
The Barcan Formulas are orthodox, but clash with the attractive Actualist view [Simchen]
     Full Idea: The Barcan Formulas are a threat to 'actualism' in modal metaphysics, which seems regrettable since the Formulas are validated by standard modal logics, but clash with the plausible and attractive actualist view (that there are no merely possible things).
     From: Ori Simchen (The Barcan Formula and Metaphysics [2013], §1)
     A reaction: He notes that the Barcan Formulas 'appear to require quantification over possibilia'. So are you prepared to accept the 'possible elephant in your kitchen'? Conceptually yes, but actually no, I would have thought. So possibilia are conceptual.
BF implies that if W possibly had a child, then something is possibly W's child [Simchen]
     Full Idea: In accordance with the Barcan Formula we assume that if it is possible that Wittgenstein should have had a child, then something or other is possibly Wittgentein's child.
     From: Ori Simchen (The Barcan Formula and Metaphysics [2013], §5)
     A reaction: Put like this it sounds unpersuasive. What is the something or other? Someone else's child? A dustbin? A bare particular? Wittgenstein's child? If it was the last one, how could it be Wittgenstein's child while only possibly being that thing?
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism
Serious Actualism says there are no facts at all about something which doesn't exist [Simchen]
     Full Idea: Serious Actualism is the view that in possible circumstances in which something does not exist there are no facts about it of any kind, including its very non-existence
     From: Ori Simchen (The Barcan Formula and Metaphysics [2013], §1 n4)
     A reaction: He suggests that the Converse Barcan Formula implies this view. It sounds comparable to the view of Presentism about time, that no future or past truthmakers exist right now. If a new square table were to exist, it would have four corners.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / b. Gettier problem
A Gettier case is a belief which is true, and its fallible justification involves some luck [Hetherington]
     Full Idea: A Gettier case contains a belief which is true and well justified without being knowledge. Its justificatory support is also fallible, ...and there is considerable luck in how the belief combnes being true with being justified.
     From: Stephen Hetherington (The Gettier Problem [2011], 5)
     A reaction: This makes luck the key factor. 'Luck' is a rather vague concept, and so the sort of luck involved must first be spelled out. Or the varieties of luck that can produce this outcome.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / a. Origin of concepts
We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: We have three different ways in which we arrive at concepts or universals: there is a clarification, where we have a ready-made concept and define it; we have a combination (where a definition creates a concept); and an experience can lead to a habit.
     From: H.H. Price (Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals' [1946], p.190)
     A reaction: [very compressed] He cites Russell as calling the third one a 'condensed induction'. There seems to an intellectualist and non-intellectualist strand in the abstractionist tradition.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
A 'felt familiarity' with universals is more primitive than abstraction [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: A 'felt familiarity' with universals seems to be more primitive than explicit abstraction.
     From: H.H. Price (Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals' [1946], p.188)
     A reaction: This I take to be part of the 'given' of the abstractionist view, which is quite well described in the first instance by Aristotle. Price says that it is 'pre-verbal'.
Our understanding of 'dog' or 'house' arises from a repeated experience of concomitances [Price,HH]
     Full Idea: Whether you call it inductive or not, our understanding of such a word as 'dog' or 'house' does arise from a repeated experience of concomitances.
     From: H.H. Price (Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals' [1946], p.191)
     A reaction: Philosophers don't use phrases like that last one any more. How else could we form the concept of 'dog' - if we are actually allowed to discuss the question of concept-formation, instead of just the logic of concepts.