Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Symposium', 'Ethics and Language' and 'Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy'

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6 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
6451 Visual sense data are an inner picture show which represents the world [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: In the case of vision, sense data are a kind of inner picture show which itself only indirectly represents aspects of the external world.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.347)
     A reaction: I'm unsure whether this is correct. Russell says the 'roughness' of the table is the sense datum. If it is even a possibility that there are unsensed sense-data, then they cannot be an aspect of the mind, as Blackburn is suggesting they are.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / b. Anti-reliabilism
2866 A true belief might be based on a generally reliable process that failed on this occasion [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: Reliabilism is open to the counterexample that a belief may be the result of some generally reliable process (a pressure gauge) which was in fact malfunctioning on this occasion, when we would be reluctant to attribute knowledge to the subject.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.327)
     A reaction: Russell's stopped clock that tells the right time twice a day. A good objection. Coming from a reliable source is very good criterion for good justification, but it needs critical assessment.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
2864 The main objection to intuitionism in ethics is that intuition is a disguise for prejudice or emotion [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: Critics say that intuitionism in ethics explains nothing, but may merely function as a disguise for prejudice or passion.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.198)
     A reaction: If someone claims to have an important moral intuition about something, you should carefully assess the person who has the intuition. I would trust some people a lot.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
23689 Moral words have an inherited power from expressing attitudes in emotional situations [Stevenson,CL]
     Full Idea: A term is moral because of the power that the word acquires, on account of its history in emotional situations, to evoke or directly express attitudes, as distinct from describing or designating them.
     From: Charles Leslie Stevenson (Ethics and Language [1944], p.33), quoted by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought 1 'Ayer'
     A reaction: Invites the question of what the words meant before they acquired this patina of historical usage. If 'good' orginally meant 'hurray!', its repeated usage doesn't seem to change that. If it was descriptive, why would that change with time?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
2865 Critics of prescriptivism observe that it is consistent to accept an ethical verdict but refuse to be bound by it [Blackburn]
     Full Idea: Critics of prescriptivism have noted the problem that whilst accepting a command seems tantamount to setting oneself to obey it, accepting an ethical verdict is, unfortunately, consistent with refusing to be bound by it.
     From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.300)
     A reaction: We nearly all of us accept that our behaviour should be better than it actually is, so we accept the oughts but fail to act. Actually 'refusing', though, sounds a bit contradictory.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / h. Fine deeds
5845 Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
     Full Idea: Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'.
     From: Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
     A reaction: This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue