35 ideas
3593 | The only way to specify the corresponding fact is asserting the sentence [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The trouble with appeal to facts in the correspondence theory is that, in general, we have no way of indicating what fact a sentence, when true, corresponds to other than asserting the sentence. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.12) |
3585 | Coherence needs positive links, not just absence of conflict [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: It is often claimed that coherence is more than 'absence of conflict' between beliefs; it also involves 'positive connections'. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) |
3584 | Justification needs coherence, while truth might be ideal coherence [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Contemporary coherence theorists are advancing a theory of justification, not of truth, …with those who argue that truth is also coherence explaining it in terms of ideal coherence, or coherence at the limit of enquiry. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) |
3599 | Deduction shows entailments, not what to believe [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The rules of deduction are rules of entailment, not rules of inference. They tell us what follows from what, not what to believe on the basis of what. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.18) |
4242 | Pure supervenience explains nothing, and is a sign of something fundamental we don't know [Nagel] |
Full Idea: Pure, unexplained supervenience is never a solution to a problem but a sign that there is something fundamental we don't know. | |
From: Thomas Nagel (The Psychophysical Nexus [2000], §III) | |
A reaction: This seems right. It is not a theory or an explanation, merely the observation of a correlation which will require explanation. Why are they correlated? |
10993 | Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read] |
Full Idea: Ramsey's Test for conditionals is that a conditional should be believed if a belief in its antecedent would commit one to believing its consequent. | |
From: report of Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.3 | |
A reaction: A rather pragmatic approach to conditionals |
14279 | Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: If two people are arguing 'If p, will q?' and are both in doubt as to p, they are adding p hypothetically to their stock of knowledge, and arguing on that basis about q; ...they are fixing their degrees of belief in q given p. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], B 155 n) | |
A reaction: This has become famous as the 'Ramsey Test'. Bennett emphasises that he is not saying that you should actually believe p - you are just trying it for size. The presupposition approach to conditionals seems attractive. Edgington likes 'degrees'. |
3591 | We could never pin down how many beliefs we have [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Asking how many beliefs I have is like asking how many drops of water there are in a bucket. If I believe my dog is in the garden, do I also believe he is not in the house, or in Siberia? | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.11) |
3582 | Propositions make error possible, so basic experiential knowledge is impossible [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Propositional content is inseparable from possible error. Therefore no judgement, however modest, is indubitable. So if basic experiential knowledge has to be indubitable, there is no such knowledge. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) |
3592 | Phenomenalism is a form of idealism [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Phenomenalism is a form of idealism. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.12) |
3579 | Sense data avoid the danger of misrepresenting the world [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The point of insisting on the absolute immediacy of sense data is that representation always seems to involve the possibility of misrepresentation. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) |
3581 | Sense data can't give us knowledge if they are non-propositional [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Acquaintance with sense data is supposed to be a form of non-propositional knowledge, but how can something be non-propositional and yet knowledge? | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) |
3564 | Is it people who are justified, or propositions? [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: What exactly is supposed to be 'justified': a person's believing some particular proposition, or the proposition that he believes? | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 1) | |
A reaction: A key distinction. See my comment on Idea 3752. What would justify a sign saying 'treasure buried here'? People can be justified in believing falsehoods. How could a false proposition be justified? |
3595 | What works always takes precedence over theories [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: A theory that represents working practices as unworkable is a bad theory. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.13) | |
A reaction: Good point. There's a lot of this about in epistemology, especially accusations of circularity or infinite regress, which (if true) don't somehow seem to worry the cove on the Clapham omnibus. |
3580 | Experience must be meaningful to act as foundations [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: If we are to treat experience as the foundation of knowledge, then experience must itself be understood to involve propositional content. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) | |
A reaction: This sounds right, but since pure 'experience' obviously doesn't have propositional content, because it needs interpretation and evaluation, then this strategy won't work. |
3578 | Are empirical foundations judgements or experiences? [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Empirical foundationists must decide whether knowledge ultimately rests on either beliefs or judgements about experience, or on the experiences or sensations themselves. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 8) | |
A reaction: This clarifies the key issue very nicely, and I firmly vote for the former option. The simplest point is that error is possible about what sensations are taken to be of, so they won't do on their own. |
3576 | Foundationalists are torn between adequacy and security [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The foundationalists dilemma is to define a basis for knowledge modest enough to be secure but rich enough to be adequate. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 7) | |
A reaction: ..And that is just what they are unable to do, precisely because adequate support would have to have enough content to be defeasibe or fallible. |
3577 | Strong justification eliminates error, but also reduces our true beliefs [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: A strongly justificationist view of rationality may not be so rational; we want the truth, but avoiding all errors and maximising our number of true beliefs are not the same thing. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 7) | |
A reaction: An interesting dilemma - to avoid all errors, believing nothing; to maximise true belief, believe everything. It is rational to follow intuition, guesses, and a wing and a prayer - once you are experienced and educated. |
3589 | Why should diverse parts of our knowledge be connected? [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Why should political theory ever have much to do with quantum physics, or pet care with parliamentary history? | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: This hardly demolishes the coherence account of justification, since your views on pet care had better be coherent, for your pet's sake. It's a pity people can make their politics cohere with their ethics. |
3590 | Coherence theory must give a foundational status to coherence itself [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Coherence theory implicitly assigns the criteria of coherence a special status. …In so far as this status is assigned a priori, the coherence theory represents a rationalistic variant of foundationalism. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: Nice move, to accuse coherence theorists of foundationalism! Wrong, though, because the a priori principles of coherence are not basic beliefs, but evolved pragmatic procedures (or something...). |
3571 | Externalism does not require knowing that you know [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: From an externalist point of view, knowing about one's reliability is not required for 'first-order' knowledge. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: Ah. 'First-order knowledge' - what's that? What we used to call 'true belief', I would say. Adequate for animals, and a good guide to daily life, but uncritical and unjustifiable. |
3574 | Externalism ignores the social aspect of knowledge [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: A problem with pure externalism is that it ignores the social dimension of knowledge. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: This seems to be contradicted by Idea 3573, which allows a social dimension to agreement over what is reliable. I am inclined to take knowledge as an entirely social concept. |
3569 | In the causal theory of knowledge the facts must cause the belief [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: According to Goldman's early causal theory of knowledge, my belief that p counts as knowledge if and only if it is caused by the fact that p. This is sufficient as well as necessary, and so does not involve justification. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: I take his theory simply to be false because what causes a belief is not what justifies it. I expect my mother to ring; the phone rings; I 'know' it is my mother (and it is), because I strongly expect it. |
3567 | How could there be causal relations to mathematical facts? [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: It is not clear what would even be meant by supposing that there are causal relations to mathematical facts. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: I agree, though platonists seem to be willing to entertain the possibility that there are causal relations, for which no further explanation can be given. Better is knowledge without a causal relation. |
3586 | Only a belief can justify a belief [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Justification requires logical rather than causal connections. That is the point of the slogan that only a belief can justify a belief. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) | |
A reaction: It seems better to talk of 'rational' connections, rather than 'logical' connections. It isn't 'logical' to believe that someone despises me because their lip is faintly curled. |
3573 | Externalist reliability refers to a range of conventional conditions [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The radical externalists' key notion is 'reliability', which is a normative condition governing adequate performance, involving reference to a range of conditions which we decide rather than discover. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 2) | |
A reaction: If we can decide whether a source is reliable, we can also decide whether a reliable source has performed well on this occasion, and that will always take precedence. |
3565 | Sometimes I ought to distrust sources which are actually reliable [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: I may reach a belief using a procedure that is in fact reliable, but which I ought to distrust. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 1) | |
A reaction: The tramp on the park bench who gives good share tips. The clock that is finally working, but has been going haywire for weeks. Reliabilism is a bad theory. |
3566 | We control our beliefs by virtue of how we enquire [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: We control our beliefs by virtue of how we enquire. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 1) |
3594 | Scepticism just reveals our limited ability to explain things [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: All the sceptic's arguments show is that there are limits to our capacity to give reasons or cite evidence. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.13) |
3575 | Scepticism can involve discrepancy, relativity, infinity, assumption and circularity [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: The classical Five Modes of Scepticism are Discrepancy (people always disagree), Relativity ('according to you'), Infinity (infinite regress of questions), Assumption (ending in dogma) and Circularity (end up where you started). | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: I take Relativity to be different from scepticism (because, roughly, it says there is nothing to know), and the others go with Agrippa's Trilemma of justification, which may have solutions. |
3587 | Seeing electrons in a cloud chamber requires theory [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: Armed with enough theory, we can see electrons in a cloud chamber. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) |
6894 | Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Ramsey Sentences are his technique for eliminating theoretical terms in science (and can be applied to mental terms, or to social rights); a term in a sentence is replaced by a variable and an existential quantifier. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928]), quoted by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.469 | |
A reaction: The technique is used by functionalists and results in a sort of eliminativism. The intrinsic nature of mental states is eliminated, because everything worth saying can be expressed in terms of functional/causal role. Sounds wrong to me. |
3588 | Foundationalists base meaning in words, coherentists base it in sentences [Williams,M] |
Full Idea: In the foundationalist picture the meaning of individual words (defined ostensively) is primary, and that of sentences is derivative. For coherentists sentences come first, with meaning understood functionally or inferentially. | |
From: Michael Williams (Problems of Knowledge [2001], Ch.10) | |
A reaction: Coherentism about language doesn't imply coherentism about justification. On language I vote for foundationalism, because I am impressed by the phenomenon of compositionality. |
9418 | All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Even if we knew everything, we should still want to systematize our knowledge as a deductive system, and the general axioms in that system would be the fundamental laws of nature. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §A) | |
A reaction: This is the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis view. Cf. Idea 9420. |
9420 | Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey] |
Full Idea: Causal laws are consequences of those propositions which we should take as axioms if we knew everything and organized it as simply as possible in a deductive system. | |
From: Frank P. Ramsey (Law and Causality [1928], §B) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 9418. |