Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'From Stimulus to Science', 'On Cruelty' and 'Content Preservation'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought
Montaigne was the founding father of liberalism [Montaigne, by Gopnik]
     Full Idea: The first liberal, the founding father if we have one, is the great sixteenth century French essayist Michel de Montaigne.
     From: report of Michel de Montaigne (On Cruelty [1580]) by Adam Gopnik - A Thousand Small Sanities 1
     A reaction: He says this not on the basis of his politicies or achievements, but his general attitudes and values. It may be another hundred years before we can identify another obvious liberal (Locke?).
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
To affirm 'p and not-p' is to have mislearned 'and' or 'not' [Quine]
     Full Idea: To affirm a compound of the form 'p and not-p' is just to have mislearned one or both of these particles.
     From: Willard Quine (From Stimulus to Science [1995], p.23), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1
     A reaction: Quoted by Fogelin. This summarises the view of logic developed by the young Wittgenstein, that logical terms are 'operators', rather than referring terms. Of course the speaker may have a compartmentalised mind, or not understand 'p' properly.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
     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.
     From: Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
     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.