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All the ideas for '', 'Real Natures and Familiar Objects' and 'There is immediate Justification'

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15 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 1. Overview of Logic
If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II)
     A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000])
     A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge.
The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III)
     A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
Properties only have identity in the context of their contraries [Elder]
     Full Idea: The very being, the identity, of any property consists at least in part in its contrasting as it does with its own proper contraries.
     From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 2.4)
     A reaction: See Elder for the details of this, but the idea that properties can only be individuated contextually sounds promising.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
Maybe we should give up the statue [Elder]
     Full Idea: Some contemporary metaphysicians infer that one of the objects must go, namely, the statue.
     From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 7.2)
     A reaction: [He cites Zimmerman 1995] This looks like a recipe for creating a vast gulf between philosophers and the rest of the population. If it is right, it makes the true ontology completely useless in understanding our daily lives.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
The loss of an essential property means the end of an existence [Elder]
     Full Idea: The loss of any essential property must amount to the end of an existence.
     From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 3)
     A reaction: This is orthodoxy for essentialists, and I presume that Aristotle would agree, but I have a problem with the essence of a great athlete, who then grows old. Must we say that they lose their identity-as-an-athlete?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
Essential properties by nature occur in clusters or packages [Elder]
     Full Idea: Essential properties by nature occur in clusters or packages.
     From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 2.2)
     A reaction: Elder proposes this as his test for the essentialness of a property - his Test of Flanking Uniformities. A nice idea.
Essential properties are bound together, and would be lost together [Elder]
     Full Idea: The properties of any essential nature are bound together....[122] so any case in which one of our envisioned familiar objects loses one of its essential properties will be a case in which it loses several.
     From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 3)
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly good generalisation rather than a necessary truth. Is there a natural selection for properties, so that only the properties which are able to bind to others to form teams are able to survive and flourish?
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / b. Basic beliefs
An experience's having propositional content doesn't make it a belief [Pryor]
     Full Idea: To say that experiences have propositional content is not to say that experiences are beliefs.
     From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §4)
     A reaction: This is important for opponents of foundationalism, because they will not allow a raw experience to act as a justification on its own. Even if concepts, or even propositions, are offered by experience, the crucial evaluation must preceded knowledge.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / e. Pro-foundations
The best argument for immediate justification is not the Regress Argument, but considering examples [Pryor]
     Full Idea: The best argument for immediate justification is not the Regress Argument, but from considering examples, such as I have a headache, I am raising my arm, I am imagining my grandmother, or seeing how dominoes could fill a chessboard.
     From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §3)
     A reaction: Most of his examples depend on the fact that they cannot be challenged by anyone else, because they are within his own mind. The dominoes require complex thought. The first two could be erroneous if he was dreaming.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification
Impure coherentists accept that perceptions can justify, unlike pure coherentists [Pryor]
     Full Idea: Pure coherentists claim that a belief can only be justified by its relations to other beliefs; impure coherentists are willing to give some non-beliefs, such as perceptual experiences, a justifying role.
     From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §4)
     A reaction: I think I would vote for the pure version. The distinction that is needed, I think, is between justification and evidence. You have to surmise causal links and explanations before you can see an experience as evidence, and then justification.
Coherentism rests on the claim that justifications must be beliefs, with propositional content [Pryor]
     Full Idea: The Master Argument for coherentism is the claim that a justifier requires asserted propositional content, and that only beliefs represent propositions assertively.
     From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §4)
     A reaction: I think this claim (which Pryor attacks) is correct. A key point is that almost any experience can be delusional, and in need of critical evaluation. We would even only accept an experience as being necessarily veridical after critical evaluation.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
Reasons for beliefs can be cited to others, unlike a raw headache experience [Pryor]
     Full Idea: If you have reasons for your belief, they should be considerations you could in principle cite, or give, to someone who doubted or challenged the belief. You can't give some else a non-propositional state like a headache.
     From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §6)
     A reaction: On the whole I agree, but if someone asked you to justify your claim that there is a beautiful sunset over the harbour, you could just say 'Look!'. Headaches are too private. The person must still see that the sunset is red, and not the window.
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 5. Controlling Beliefs
Beliefs are not chosen, but you can seek ways to influence your belief [Pryor]
     Full Idea: Ordinarily we make no intentional choices about what to believe, but one can choose to believe something, and then seek ways to get oneself to believe it.
     From: James Pryor (There is immediate Justification [2005], §7)
     A reaction: Deliberately reading the articles of a philosopher that you seem to agree with would be an example. Presumably the belief that this is a good belief and should be given support is not itself voluntarily chosen. Ultimately we are helpless. See Idea 1854.
19. Language / F. Communication / 3. Denial
We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
     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.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
     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).