7 ideas
| 19566 | Epistemology does not just concern knowledge; all aspects of cognitive activity are involved [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: Epistemology is not just knowledge. There is enquiring, reasoning, changes of view, beliefs, assumptions, presuppositions, hypotheses, true beliefs, making sense, adequacy, understanding, wisdom, responsible enquiry, and so on. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'What') | |
| A reaction: [abridged] Stop! I give in. His topic is whether truth is central to epistemology. Rivals seem to be knowledge-first, belief-first, and justification-first. I'm inclined to take justification as the central issue. Does it matter? |
| 19568 | Making sense of things, or finding a good theory, are non-truth-related cognitive successes [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: There are cognitive successes that are not obviously truth related, such as the concepts of making sense of the course of experience, and having found an empirically adequate theory. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
| A reaction: He is claiming that truth is not the main aim of epistemology. He quotes Marian David for the rival view. Personally I doubt whether the concepts of 'making sense' or 'empirical adequacy' can be explicated without mentioning truth. |
| 19567 | The 'defeasibility' approach says true justified belief is knowledge if no undermining facts could be known [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: The 'defeasibility' approach says that having knowledge requires, in addition to justified true belief, there being no true information which, if learned, would result in the person in question no longer being justified in believing the claim. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], 'Epistemic') | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an externalist view, since it depends on information of which the cognizer may be unaware. A defeater may yet have an undiscovered counter-defeater. The only real defeater is the falsehood of the proposition. |
| 19570 | Reliabilism cannot assess the justification for propositions we don't believe [Kvanvig] |
| Full Idea: The most serious problem for reliabilism is that it cannot explain adequately the concept of propositional justification, the kind of justification one might have for a proposition one does not believe, or which one disbelieves. | |
| From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Truth is not the Primary Epistemic Goal [2005], Notes 2) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand this (though I pass it on anyway). Why can't the reliabilist just offer a critique of the reliability of the justification available for the dubious proposition? |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 8338 | A phenomenalist about objects has to be a regularity theorist about causation [Strawson,G] |
| Full Idea: If you are a phenomenalist about objects, then there is an important sense in which you ought to be a Regularity theorist about what causation is, in such objects. | |
| From: Galen Strawson (The Secret Connexion [1989], App C) | |
| A reaction: Strawson is denying that Hume is a phenomenalist. One might go a little further, and say that a phenomenalist should abandon the idea of causation (as Russell did). |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |