19463
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Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer]
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Full Idea:
In all inductive reasoning we make the assumption that there is a measure of uniformity in nature; or, roughly speaking, that the future will, in the appropriate respects, resemble the past.
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From:
A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
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A reaction:
I would say that nature is 'stable'. Nature changes, so a global assumption of total uniformity is daft. Do we need some global uniformity assumptions, if the induction involved is local? I would say yes. Are all inductions conditional on this?
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19459
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To say 'I am not thinking' must be false, but it might have been true, so it isn't self-contradictory [Ayer]
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Full Idea:
To say 'I am not thinking' is self-stultifying since if it is said intelligently it must be false: but it is not self-contradictory. The proof that it is not self-contradictory is that it might have been false.
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From:
A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
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A reaction:
If it doesn't imply a contradiction, then it is not a necessary truth, which is what it is normally taken to be. Is 'This is a sentence' necessarily true? It might not have been one, if the rules of English syntax changed recently.
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19460
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'I know I exist' has no counterevidence, so it may be meaningless [Ayer]
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Full Idea:
If there is no experience at all of finding out that one is not conscious, or that one does not exist, ..it is tempting to say that sentences like 'I exist', 'I am conscious', 'I know that I exist' do not express genuine propositions.
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From:
A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii)
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A reaction:
This is, of course, an application of the somewhat discredited verification principle, but the fact that strictly speaking the principle has been sort of refuted does not mean that we should not take it seriously, and be influenced by it.
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19462
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Induction passes from particular facts to other particulars, or to general laws, non-deductively [Ayer]
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Full Idea:
Inductive reasoning covers all cases in which we pass from a particular statement of fact, or set of them, to a factual conclusion which they do not formally entail. The inference may be to a general law, or by analogy to another particular instance.
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From:
A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii)
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A reaction:
My preferred definition is 'learning from experience' - which I take to be the most rational behaviour you could possibly imagine. I don't think a definition should be couched in terms of 'objects' or 'particulars'.
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11214
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We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
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Full Idea:
The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A.
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From:
Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
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A reaction:
[compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role).
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15674
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One can universalise good advice, but that doesn't make it an obligation [Finlayson]
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Full Idea:
'Early to bed and early to rise' is a universalizable maxim, but, though it might be good advice, there is obviously no such obligation.
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From:
James Gordon Finlayson (Habermas [2005], Ch.6:83)
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A reaction:
I take it that Kant's rule won't distinguish moral guidance from prudential guidance. Unfair, I think. I may be a lark, but when I universalise this maxim I see that it can't be willed as a universal rule, because we should tolerate the owls.
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