6 ideas
3900 | Maybe experience is not essential to perception, but only to the causing of beliefs [Armstrong, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Armstrong has argued that experience, as normally understood, is not necessary to perception. To perceive is to acquire beliefs, through a causal process. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 23.4 |
4253 | Externalism says knowledge involves a natural relation between the belief state and what makes it true [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Externalist accounts of non-inferential knowledge say what makes a true non-inferential belief a case of knowledge is some natural relation which holds between the belief state and the situation which makes the belief true. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973], 11.III.6) | |
A reaction: Armstrong's concept is presumably a response to Quine's desire to 'naturalise epistemology'. Bad move, I suspect. It probably reduces knowledge to mere true belief, and hence a redundant concept. |
299 | What is fine is always difficult [Plato] |
Full Idea: The proverb says 'Anything fine is difficult'. | |
From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 304e) | |
A reaction: attributed (as usual) to Solon |
297 | What is fine is the parent of goodness [Plato] |
Full Idea: Fineness is the father of goodness. | |
From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 297b) |
298 | While sex is very pleasant, it should be in secret, as it looks contemptible [Plato] |
Full Idea: As for sex, everyone agrees that, while it is extremely pleasant, it should be indulged in (if at all) in secret, because it is a highly contemptible sight. | |
From: Plato (Hippias Major [c.392 BCE], 299a) |
5994 | Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG] |
Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning. | |
From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out. |