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4901
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Truth has to be correspondence to facts, and a match between relations of ideas and relations in the world [Perry]
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Full Idea:
I think knowledge and truth are a matter of correspondence to facts, despite all the energy spent showing the naïveté of this view. The connections of our ideas in our heads correspond to relations in the outside world.
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1)
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A reaction:
Yes. Modern books offer the difficulties of defining 'correspondence', and finding an independent account of 'facts', as conclusive objections, but I say a brain is a truth machine, and it had better be useful. Indefinability doesn't nullify concepts.
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6007
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If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
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Full Idea:
The 'undetected' or 'veiled' paradox of Eubulides says: if you know your father, and don't know the veiled person before you, but that person is your father, you both know and don't know the same person.
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From:
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
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A reaction:
Essentially an uninteresting equivocation on two senses of "know", but this paradox comes into its own when we try to give an account of how linguistic reference works. Frege's distinction of sense and reference tried to sort it out (Idea 4976).
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6008
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Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
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Full Idea:
The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap.
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From:
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
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A reaction:
(also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213).
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4885
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Identity is a very weak relation, which doesn't require interdefinability, or shared properties [Perry]
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Full Idea:
The truth of "a=b" doesn't require much of 'a' and 'b' other than that there is a single thing to which they both refer. They needn't be interdefinable, or have supervenient properties. In this sense, identity is a very weak relation.
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §1.2)
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A reaction:
Interesting. This is seeing the epistemological aspects of identity. Ontologically, identity must invoke Leibniz's Law, and is the ultimately powerful 'relation'. A given student, and the cause of a crop circle, may APPEAR to be quite different.
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4899
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Possible worlds thinking has clarified the logic of modality, but is problematic in epistemology [Perry]
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Full Idea:
Using possible worlds to model truth-conditions of statements has led to considerable clarity about the logic of modality. Attempts to use the system for epistemic purposes, however, have been plagued by problems.
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1)
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A reaction:
Presumably what lurks behind this is a distinction between what is logically or naturally possible, and what appears to be possible from the perspective of a conscious mind. Is there a possible world in which I can fly?
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4898
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Possible worlds are indices for a language, or concrete realities, or abstract possibilities [Perry]
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Full Idea:
Possible worlds can be thought of as indices for models of the language in question, or as concrete realities (David Lewis), or as abstract ways the world might be (Robert Stalnaker), or in various other ways.
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1)
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A reaction:
I strongly favour the Stalnaker route here. Reducing great metaphysics to mere language I find abhorrent, and I suspect that Lewis was trapped by his commitment to strong empiricism. We must embrace abstractions into our ontology.
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4891
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If epiphenomenalism just says mental events are effects but not causes, it is consistent with physicalism [Perry]
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Full Idea:
Epiphenomenalism is usually considered to be a form of dualism, but if we define it as the doctrine that conscious events are effects but not causes, it appears to be consistent with physicalism.
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §4.2)
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A reaction:
Interesting. The theory was invented to put mind outside physics, and make the closure of physics possible. However, being capable of causing things seems to be a necessary condition for physical objects. An effect in one domain is a cause in another.
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16391
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Indexical thoughts are about themselves, and ascribe properties to themselves [Perry, by Recanati]
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Full Idea:
Perry's newer token-reflexive framework says indexical thoughts have token-reflexive content, that is, thoughts that are about themselves and ascribe properties to themselves. …They relate not to the subject, but to the occurrence of a thought.
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From:
report of John Perry (Reference and Reflexivity [2001]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 18.1
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A reaction:
[There seem to be four indexical theories: this one, Recanati's, the earlier Kaplan-Perry one, and Lewis's] Is Perry thinking of second-level thoughts? 'I'm bored' has the content 'boredom' plus 'felt in here'? How does 'I'm bored' refer to 'I'm bored'?
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4889
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Although we may classify ideas by content, we individuate them differently, as their content can change [Perry]
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Full Idea:
Although we classify ideas by content for many purposes, we do not individuate them by content. The content of an idea can change.
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §3.2)
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A reaction:
As the compiler of this database, I find this very appealing. The mind works exactly like a database. I have a 'file' (Perry's word) marked "London", the content of which undergoes continual change. I am a database management system.
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4896
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The intension of an expression is a function from possible worlds to an appropriate extension [Perry]
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Full Idea:
In possible-worlds semantics, expressions have intensions, which are functions from possible worlds to appropriate extensions (names to individuals, n-place predicates to n-tuples, and sentences to truth values, built from parts).
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From:
John Perry (Knowledge, Possibility and Consciousness [2001], §8.1)
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A reaction:
Interesting. Perry distinguishes 'referential' (or 'subject matter') content, which is prior to the link to extensions - a link which creates 'reflexive' content. He is keen that they should not become confused. True knowledge is 'situated'.
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12151
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If we replace 'I' in sentences about me, they are different beliefs and explanations of behaviour [Perry]
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Full Idea:
If I leave a trail of sugar, and realise 'that I am making a mess', ...when we replace the word 'I' with other designations of me, we no longer have an explanation of my behaviour, or an attribution of the same belief, so it is an 'essential indexical'.
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From:
John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979], 'Intro')
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A reaction:
[compressed] A famous observation of Perry's, which leads him to challenge traditional accounts of belief and of propositions. I don't think I see a problem, if we have a thoroughly non-linguistic account of essentially unambiguous propositions.
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7903
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The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
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Full Idea:
The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
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From:
Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
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A reaction:
What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
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15204
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Actual tensed sentences cannot be tenseless, because they can cite their own context [Perry, by Le Poidevin]
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Full Idea:
In the new tenseless theory, no tensed token sentence can be equivalent to a tenseless token, because the former, unlike the latter, draws attention to the context in which it is tokened.
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From:
report of John Perry (The Problem of the Essential Indexical [1979]) by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 3 a
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A reaction:
So the problem about indexicals was worrying fans of the tenseless B-series view of time (and so it should). I'm inclined to translate sentences containing indexicals into their actual propositions, which tend to avoid them. 'Time/person of utterance'.
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