Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Philosophical Essay on Probability', 'Change in View: Principles of Reasoning' and 'Giordano Bruno and Hermetic Tradition'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


14 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 4. Early European Thought
The magic of Asclepius enters Renaissance thought mixed into Ficino's neo-platonism [Yates]
The dating, in 1614, of the Hermetic writings as post-Christian is the end of the Renaissance [Yates]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
It is a principle of reasoning not to clutter your mind with trivialities [Harman]
The rules of reasoning are not the rules of logic [Harman]
If there is a great cost to avoiding inconsistency, we learn to reason our way around it [Harman]
Logic has little relevance to reasoning, except when logical conclusions are immediate [Harman]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
Implication just accumulates conclusions, but inference may also revise our views [Harman]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 6. Probability
The Gambler's Fallacy (ten blacks, so red is due) overemphasises the early part of a sequence [Harman]
High probability premises need not imply high probability conclusions [Harman]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
We strongly desire to believe what is true, even though logic does not require it [Harman]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / a. Coherence as justification
In revision of belief, we need to keep track of justifications for foundations, but not for coherence [Harman]
Coherence is intelligible connections, especially one element explaining another [Harman]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 7. Testimony
The reliability of witnesses depends on whether they benefit from their observations [Laplace, by Hacking]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
If a supreme intellect knew all atoms and movements, it could know all of the past and the future [Laplace]