15 ideas
22642 | Man has an intense natural interest in the consistency of his own thinking [James] |
Full Idea: After man's interest in breathing freely, the greatest of all his interests (because it never fluctuates or remits….) is his interest in consistency, in feeling that what he now thinks goes with what he thinks on other occasions. | |
From: William James (The Pragmatist Account of Truth [1908], 'Seventh') | |
A reaction: People notoriously contradict themselves all the time, but I suspect that it is when they get out of their depth in complexities such as politics. They probably achieve great consistency within their own expertise, and in common knowledge. |
13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
Full Idea: Quine ends up with the logic that is maximally justified by experience, ...but a large number of the core principles of logic will have to be used to select the logic that is maximally justified by experience. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954]) by Paul Boghossian - Knowledge of Logic p.233 | |
A reaction: In order to grasp some core principles of logic, you will probably need a certain amount of experience. I take logic to be an abstracted feature of reality (unless it is extended by pure fictions). Some basic logic may be hard wired in us. |
9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
Full Idea: Elementary logic, as commonly systematized nowadays, comprises truth-function theory (involving 'or', 'and', 'not' etc.), quantifiers (and their variables), and identity theory ('='). In addition, set theory requires classes among values of variables. | |
From: Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], II) | |
A reaction: Quine is famous for trying to squeeze properties out of the picture, which would then block higher-order logics (which quantify over properties). Quine's list gives a nice programme for a student of the philosophy of logic to understand. |
13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
Full Idea: Quine's view of logical consequence is that it is when there is no way of uniformly substituting nonlogical expressions in the premises and consequences so that the premises all remain true but the consequence now becomes false. | |
From: report of Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], p.103) by Theodore Sider - Logic for Philosophy 1.5 | |
A reaction: One might just say that the consequence holds if you insert consistent variables for the nonlogical terms, which looks like Aristotle's view of the matter. |
13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
Full Idea: Quine said a logical truth is a truth in which only logical constants occur essentially, ...but then a fruitful definition of 'logical constant' is called for. | |
From: comment on Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954]) by Ian Hacking - What is Logic? §02 |
9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
Full Idea: Unlike elementary logic, the truths of set theory are not obvious. Set theory was straining at the leash of intuition ever since Cantor discovered higher infinites; and with the added impetus of the paradoxes of set theory the leash snapped. | |
From: Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], II) | |
A reaction: This problem seems to have forced Quine into platonism about sets, because he felt they were essential for mathematics and science, but couldn't be constructed with precision. So they must be real, but we don't quite understand them. |
9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
Full Idea: We might say that set theory is not really logic, but a branch of mathematics. This would deprive 'includes' of the status of a logical word. Frege's derivation of arithmetic would then cease to count as a derivation from logic: for he used set theory. | |
From: Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], II) | |
A reaction: Quine has been making the point that higher infinities and the paradoxes undermine the status of set theory as logic, but he decides to continue thinking of set theory as logic. Critics of logicism frequently ask whether the reduction is to logic. |
22641 | Realities just are, and beliefs are true of them [James] |
Full Idea: Realities are not true, they are; and beliefs are true of them. | |
From: William James (The Pragmatist Account of Truth [1908], 'Fourth') | |
A reaction: At last, a remark by James about truth which I really like. For 'realities' I would use the word 'facts'. |
9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |
Full Idea: One's hypothesis as to there being universals is at bottom just as arbitrary or pragmatic a matter as one's adoption of a new brand of set theory or even a new system of bookkeeping. | |
From: Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], x) | |
A reaction: This spells out clearly the strongly pragmatist vein in Quine's thinking. |
9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
Full Idea: When Kant's arithmetical examples of a priori synthetic judgements were sweepingly disqualified by Frege's reduction of arithmetic to logic, attention moved to the less tendentious and logically prior question 'How is logical certainty possible?' | |
From: Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], I) | |
A reaction: A nice summary of the story so far, from someone who should know. This still leaves the question open of whether any synthetic truths can be derived from the logical certainties which are available. |
9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
Full Idea: In trying to make sense of the role of convention in a priori knowledge, the very distinction between a priori and empirical begins to waver and dissolve. | |
From: Willard Quine (Carnap and Logical Truth [1954], VI) | |
A reaction: This is the next stage in the argument after Wittgenstein presents the apriori as nothing more than what arises from truth tables. The rationalists react by taking us back to the original 'natural light of reason' view. Then we go round again... |
19730 | Epistemic virtues: love of knowledge, courage, caution, autonomy, practical wisdom... [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: Virtue theorists may focus on the particular habits or virtues of successful cognizers, such as love of knowledge, firmness, courage and caution, humility, autonomy, generosity, and practical wisdom. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], III) | |
A reaction: [He cites Roberts and Wood 2007] It is interesting that most of these virtues do not merely concern cognition. How about diligence, self-criticism, flexibility...? |
19731 | If epistemic virtues are faculties or powers, that doesn't explain propositional knowledge [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: Conceiving of the virtues in terms of faculties or powers doesn't help at all with the problem of accounting for propositional knowledge. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], IV B) | |
A reaction: It always looks as if epistemic virtues are a little peripheral to the main business of knowledge, which is getting beliefs to be correct and well-founded. Given that epistemic saints make occasional mistakes, talk of virtues can't be enough. |
19732 | The value of good means of attaining truth are swamped by the value of the truth itself [Kvanvig] |
Full Idea: The Swamping Problem is that the value of truth swamps the value of additional features of true beliefs which are only instrumentally related to them. True belief is no more valuable if one adds a feature valuable for getting one to the truth. | |
From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Virtue Epistemology [2011], IV B) | |
A reaction: His targets here are reliabilism and epistemic virtues. Kvanvig's implication is that the key to understanding the nature of knowledge is to pinpoint why we value it so much. |
22640 | We find satisfaction in consistency of all of our beliefs, perceptions and mental connections [James] |
Full Idea: We find satisfaction in consistency between the present idea and the entire rest of our mental equipment, including the whole order of our sensations, and that of our intuitions of likeness and difference, and our whole stock previously acquired truths. | |
From: William James (The Pragmatist Account of Truth [1908], 'Fourth') | |
A reaction: I like this, apart from the idea that the criterion of good coherence seems to be subjective 'satisfaction'. We should ask why some large set of beliefs is coherent. I assume nature is coherent, and truth is the best explanation of our coherence about it. |