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6349
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I can prove a hand exists, by holding one up, pointing to it, and saying 'here is one hand' [Moore,GE]
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Full Idea:
I can prove now that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, 'Here is one hand', and adding, as I gesture with the left, 'and here is another'.
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From:
G.E. Moore (Proof of an External World [1939], p.1)
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A reaction:
The words need to be spoken, presumably, so that what he is doing fits into the linguistic conventions of what will normally be accepted as a proof. In fact, just holding the hand up seems enough. The proof begs the question of virtual reality.
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9382
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Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
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Full Idea:
I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject.
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From:
Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
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A reaction:
I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good.
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12314
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Audience-relative explanation, or metaphysical explanation based on information? [Stanford]
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Full Idea:
Rather than an 'interest-relative' notion of explanation (Putnam), it can be informational content which makes an explanation, which is an 'audience-invariant' contraint, which is not pragmatic, but mainly epistemological and also partly metaphysical.
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From:
Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.172)
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A reaction:
[compressed summary of Ruben 1990] Examples given are that Rome burning explains Nero fiddling, even if no one ever says so, and learning that George III had porphyria explains his madness.
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