55 ideas
4697 | There has been a distinct 'Social Turn' in recent philosophy, like the earlier 'Linguistic Turn' [O'Grady] |
1606 | You have to be a Platonist to debate about reality, so every philosopher is a Platonist [Roochnik] |
1595 | Philosophy aims to satisfy the chief human desire - the articulation of beauty itself [Roochnik] |
2557 | Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty] |
1571 | 'Logos' ranges from thought/reasoning, to words, to rational structures outside thought [Roochnik] |
1572 | In the seventeenth century the only acceptable form of logos was technical knowledge [Roochnik] |
1573 | The hallmark of a person with logos is that they give reasons why one opinion is superior to another [Roochnik] |
1592 | Logos cannot refute the relativist, and so must admit that it too is a matter of desire (for truth and agreement) [Roochnik] |
1593 | Human desire has an ordered structure, with logos at the pinnacle [Roochnik] |
1603 | Logos is not unconditionally good, but good if there is another person willing to engage with it [Roochnik] |
1598 | We prefer reason or poetry according to whether basics are intelligible or not [Roochnik] |
4731 | Good reasoning will avoid contradiction, enhance coherence, not ignore evidence, and maximise evidence [O'Grady] |
1584 | Modern science, by aiming for clarity about the external world, has abandoned rationality in the human world [Roochnik] |
1591 | Unfortunately for reason, argument can't be used to establish the value of argument [Roochnik] |
1599 | Attempts to suspend all presuppositions are hopeless, because a common ground must be agreed for the process [Roochnik] |
2556 | Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty] |
4735 | Just as maps must simplify their subject matter, so thought has to be reductionist about reality [O'Grady] |
4703 | The epistemic theory of truth presents it as 'that which is licensed by our best theory of reality' [O'Grady] |
4701 | To say a relative truth is inexpressible in other frameworks is 'weak', while saying it is false is 'strong' [O'Grady] |
4726 | Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady] |
2549 | For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty] |
4705 | Logical relativism appears if we allow more than one legitimate logical system [O'Grady] |
4700 | A third value for truth might be "indeterminate", or a point on a scale between 'true' and 'false' [O'Grady] |
4704 | Wittgenstein reduced Russell's five primitive logical symbols to a mere one [O'Grady] |
1605 | Reality can be viewed neutrally, or as an object of desire [Roochnik] |
4711 | Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties [O'Grady] |
4698 | What counts as a fact partly depends on the availability of human concepts to describe them [O'Grady] |
4715 | We may say that objects have intrinsic identity conditions, but still allow multiple accounts of them [O'Grady] |
4719 | Maybe developments in logic and geometry have shown that the a priori may be relative [O'Grady] |
4720 | Sense-data are only safe from scepticism if they are primitive and unconceptualised [O'Grady] |
4722 | Modern epistemology centres on debates about foundations, and about external justification [O'Grady] |
4724 | Internalists say the reasons for belief must be available to the subject, and externalists deny this [O'Grady] |
2548 | If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty] |
4723 | Coherence involves support from explanation and evidence, and also probability and confirmation [O'Grady] |
6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
2566 | You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty] |
4709 | Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady] |
4725 | Contextualism says that knowledge is relative to its context; 'empty' depends on your interests [O'Grady] |
1577 | Relativism is a disease which destroys the possibility of rational debate [Roochnik] |
4732 | One may understand a realm of ideas, but be unable to judge their rationality or truth [O'Grady] |
2553 | The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty] |
2550 | Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty] |
2554 | Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty] |
2565 | Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty] |
4710 | Verificationism was attacked by the deniers of the analytic-synthetic distinction, needed for 'facts' [O'Grady] |
2560 | Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty] |
2562 | A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty] |
2559 | Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty] |
4717 | If we abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction, scepticism about meaning may be inevitable [O'Grady] |
1596 | Reasoning aims not at the understanding of objects, but at the desire to give beautiful speeches [Roochnik] |
1578 | If relativism is the correct account of human values, then rhetoric is more important than reasoning [Roochnik] |
4706 | Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady] |
4734 | Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady] |
2558 | Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty] |
4727 | The chief problem for fideists is other fideists who hold contrary ideas [O'Grady] |