25 ideas
| 3695 | Philosophy is a priori if it is anything [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: My conviction is that philosophy is a priori if it is anything. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], Pref) | |
| A reaction: How about knowledge of a posteriori necessities, such as the length of a metre, known by observation of the standard metre in Paris? |
| 3651 | Perceiving necessary connections is the essence of reasoning [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: If one never in fact grasps any necessary connections between anything, it is hard to see what reasoning could possible amount to. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.3) |
| 3700 | Coherence can't be validated by appeal to coherence [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The epistemic authority of coherence cannot itself be established by appeal to coherence. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7 n50) | |
| A reaction: The standard approach amongs modern philosophers (following, I think, Kripke) is to insist on 'intuition' as basic, despite all its problems. I have no better suggestion. |
| 3697 | The concept of possibility is prior to that of necessity [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: While necessity and possibility are interdefinable concepts, it is the idea of a possible world or situation which is intuitively primary. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.3) |
| 3704 | Moderate rationalists believe in fallible a priori justification [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Moderate rationalism preserves a priori justification, but rejects the idea that it is infallible. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) |
| 3707 | Our rules of thought can only be judged by pure rational insight [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Criteria or rules do not somehow apply to themselves. They must be judged by the sort of rational insight or intuition that the rationalist is advocating. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §5.2) |
| 3696 | A priori justification requires understanding but no experience [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: A proposition will count as being justified a priori as long as no appeal to experience is needed for the proposition to be justified - once it is understood. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §1.2) | |
| A reaction: Could you 'understand' that a square cannot be circular without appeal to experience? I'm losing faith in the pure a priori. |
| 3703 | You can't explain away a priori justification as analyticity, and you can't totally give it up [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Moderate empiricists try unsuccessfully to explain a priori justification by means of analyticity, and radical empiricist attempts to dispense with a priori justification end in nearly total scepticism. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.1) | |
| A reaction: My working theory is neither of the above. Because we can abstract from the physical world, we can directly see/experience generalised (and even necessary) truths about it. |
| 3706 | A priori justification can vary in degree [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: A priori justification can vary in degree. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §4.5) | |
| A reaction: This idea, which I trace back at least to Russell, seems to me one of breakthrough ideas in modern thought. It means that a priori knowledge can be reconnected with a posteriori knowledge. |
| 3699 | The induction problem blocks any attempted proof of physical statements [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The attempt to prove physical statements on the basis of sensory evidence is defeated by the problem of induction. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.6) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a logician's use of the word 'prove', which would be a pretty forlorn hope. Insofar as experience proves anything, fully sensing a chair proves its existence. |
| 23029 | Knowledge is secured by the relations between its parts, through differences and identities [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: What gives reality and stability to our knowledge is the reality and stability of the relations established between its parts..…by the differences and identities with other things which have similarly achieved comparative fixity and substantiality. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although I don't sympathise with Green's idealist metaphysics, and nevertheless think that this internalist account of knowledge is correct. |
| 3701 | Externalist theories of justification don't require believers to have reasons for their beliefs [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: An externalist theory of epistemic justification or warrant need not involve the possession by the believer of anything like a reason for thinking that their belief is true. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7) | |
| A reaction: That is the problem with externalism. If the believer does not have a reason, then why would they believe? Externalists are interesting on justification, but daft about belief. Why do I believe I know something, when I can't recall how I learnt it? |
| 3702 | Externalism means we have no reason to believe, which is strong scepticism [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: If externalism is the final story, we have no reason to think that any of our beliefs are true, which amounts to a very strong and intuitively implausible version of scepticism. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.7) | |
| A reaction: A very good point. I may, like a cat, know many things, with good external support, but as soon as I ask sceptical questions, I sink without trace if I lack internal reasons. |
| 3709 | Induction must go beyond the evidence, in order to explain why the evidence occurred [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: Inductive explanations must be conceived of as something stronger than mere Humean constant conjunction; …anything less than this will not explain why the inductive evidence occurred in the first place. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §7.7) |
| 3708 | All thought represents either properties or indexicals [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: I assume that the contents of thought can be accounted for by appeal to just two general sorts of ingredient - properties (including relations) and indexicals. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §6.7) | |
| A reaction: I don't accept that relations are a type of properties. Since he does not include objects or substances, I take it that he considers objects to be bundles of properties. |
| 3698 | Indeterminacy of translation is actually indeterminacy of meaning and belief [Bonjour] |
| Full Idea: The thesis of the indeterminacy of translation would be better described as the thesis of the indeterminacy of meaning and belief. | |
| From: Laurence Bonjour (In Defence of Pure Reason [1998], §3.5) | |
| A reaction: Not necessarily. It is not incoherent to believe that the target people have a coherent and stable system of meaning and belief, but finding its translation indeterminate because it is holistic, and rooted in a way of life. |
| 23046 | States only have full authority if they heed the claims of human fellowship [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The claim of the state is only absolutely paramount on the supposition that in its commands and prohibitions it takes account of all the claims that arise out of human fellowship. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §146), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: He rejects the idea of the general will in ordinary political activity, so it is not clear how this condition could ever be met in practice. Hideous governments just pay lip service to 'human fellowship'. How could you tell whether they believe it? |
| 23051 | Equality also implies liberty, because equality must be of opportunity as well as possessions [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: Liberty was essential, not only as a means to equality, but as part of it. …because the opportunity which was to be equalised was not merely to have and to be happy, but to do and to realise. It was 'the right of man to make the best of himself'. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: This nicely identifies the core idea of civilised liberalism (as opposed to the crazy self-seeking kind). I think 'give people the right to make the best of themselves' makes a good slogan, because it implies ensuring that they have the means. |
| 23028 | The highest political efforts express our deeper social spirit [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Political effort in all its highest forms is the expression of a belief in the reality of the social spirit as the deeper element in the individual. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State I | |
| A reaction: Although Green is rather literally spiritual, if we express it as a central aspect of human nature, this idea strikes me as correct. Writing in 2021, I am totally bewildered by the entire absence of any 'higher' forms of political expression. |
| 23054 | Communism is wrong because it restricts the freedom of individuals to contribute to the community [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Green condemned pure communism, not in the name of any abstract rights of the individual, but of the right of the community itself to the best that individuals can contribute through the free and spontaneous exercise of their powers of self-expression. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State IV | |
| A reaction: Interesting. In a very authoritarian communist state it does seem that citizens are less able to contribute to the general good. But extreme liberty seems also to undermine the general good. Hm. |
| 23047 | Original common ownership is securing private property, not denying it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: Common ownership in early societies is not the denial of a man's private property in the products of his own labour, but the only way under the circumstances of securing it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §218) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: This is announced with some confidence, but it is very speculative. I think there is some truth in Locke's thought that putting work into a creation creates natural ownership. But who owns the raw materials? Why is work valued highly? |
| 23042 | National spirit only exists in the individuals who embody it [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: A national spirit cannot exist apart from the individuals who embody it. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II | |
| A reaction: We see this in football supporters. They are thrilled by the glory of a great victory, but the reality is just the thrill of the players, and the exuberance in each supporter's mind. There is no further entity called the 'glory'. Green was a liberal. |
| 23048 | The ground of property ownership is not force but the power to use it for social ends [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
| Full Idea: It is not the power of forcible tenure but the power of utilisation for social ends that is the ground of the permanent recognition that constitutes a right to property. | |
| From: report of T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882]) by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: Tell that to the aristocratic owners of British grouse moors! This just seems to be wishful thinking. Does that mean that I have no right to property if my ends are not 'social'? |
| 23049 | Property is needed by all citizens, to empower them to achieve social goods [Green,TH] |
| Full Idea: The rationale of property is that every one should be secured by society in the power of getting and keeping the means of realising a will which in possibility is a will directed to social good. | |
| From: T.H. Green (Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation [1882], §220), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State III | |
| A reaction: An interesting argument. If you want free citizens in a liberal society to be capable of achieving social good, you must allow them the right to acquire the means of doing so. |
| 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. |