13 ideas
| 9161 | Maybe reasonableness requires circular justifications - that is one coherentist view [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: It is not out of the question to hold that without circular justifications there is no reasonableness at all. That is the view of a certain kind of coherence theorist. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 2) | |
| A reaction: This nicely captures a gut feeling I have had for a long time. Being now thoroughly converted to coherentism, I am drawn to the idea - like a moth to a flame. But how do we distinguish cuddly circularity from its cruel and vicious cousin? |
| 17435 | Objects do not naturally form countable units [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Objects do not by themselves naturally fall into countable units. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division [1997], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Hm. This seems to be modern Fregean orthodoxy. Why did the institution of counting ever get started if the things in the world didn't demand counting? Even birds are aware of the number of eggs in their nest (because they miss a stolen one). |
| 17433 | We can still count squares, even if they overlap [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The fact that there is overlap does not seem to inhibit our ability to count squares. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division [1997], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: She has a diagram of three squares overlapping slightly at their corners. Contrary to Frege, these seems to depend on a subliminal concept of the square that doesn't depend on language. |
| 17439 | There is no deep reason why we count carrots but not asparagus [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Why do speakers of English count carrots but not asparagus? There is no 'deep' reason. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division [1997]) | |
| A reaction: Koslick is offering this to defend the Fregean conceptual view of counting, but what seems to matter is what is countable, and not whether we happen to count it. You don't need to know what carrots are to count them. Cooks count asparagus. |
| 17434 | We struggle to count branches and waves because our concepts lack clear boundaries [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The reason we have a hard time counting the branches and the waves is because our concepts 'branches on the tree' and 'waves on the ocean' do not determine sufficiently precise boundaries: the concepts do not draw a clear invisible line around each thing. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division [1997], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This is the 'isolation' referred to in Frege. |
| 17436 | We talk of snow as what stays the same, when it is a heap or drift or expanse [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Talk of snow concerns what stays the same when some snow changes, as it might be, from a heap of snow to a drift, to an expanse. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Isolation and Non-arbitrary Division [1997], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: The whiteness also stays the same, but isn't stuff. |
| 9160 | Lots of propositions are default reasonable, but the a priori ones are empirically indefeasible [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Propositions such as 'People usually tell the truth' seem to count as default reasonable, but it is odd to count them as a priori. Empirical indefeasibility seems the obvious way to distinguish those default reasonable propositions that are a priori. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: Sounds reasonable, but it would mean that all the uniformities of nature would then count as a priori. 'Every physical object exerts gravity' probably has no counterexamples, but doesn't seem a priori (even if it is necessary). See Idea 9164. |
| 9164 | We treat basic rules as if they were indefeasible and a priori, with no interest in counter-evidence [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: I argue not that our most basic rules are a priori or empirically indefeasible, but that we treat them as empirically defeasible and indeed a priori; we don't regard anything as evidence against them. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 4) | |
| A reaction: This is the fictionalist view of a priori knowledge (and of most other things, such as mathematics). I can't agree. Most people treat heaps of a posteriori truths (like the sun rising) as a priori. 'Mass involves energy' is indefeasible a posteriori. |
| 9165 | Reliability only makes a rule reasonable if we place a value on the truth produced by reliable processes [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Reliability is not a 'factual property'; in calling a rule reasonable we are evaluating it, and all that makes sense to ask about is what we value. We place a high value on the reliability of our inductive and perceptual rules that lead to truth. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to be a contradiction of reliabilism, since truth is a pretty widespread epistemological value. If you do value truth, then eyes are pretty reliable organs for attaining it. Reliabilism is still wrong, but not for this reason. |
| 9162 | Believing nothing, or only logical truths, is very reliable, but we want a lot more than that [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Reliability is not all we want in an inductive rule. Completely reliable methods are available, such as believing nothing, or only believing logical truths. But we don't value them, but value less reliable methods with other characteristics. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 3) | |
| A reaction: I would take this excellent point to be an advertisement for inference to the best explanation, which requires not only reliable inputs of information, but also a presiding rational judge to assess the mass of evidence. |
| 9166 | People vary in their epistemological standards, and none of them is 'correct' [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: We should concede that different people have slightly different basic epistemological standards. ..I doubt that any clear sense could be given to the notion of 'correctness' here. | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 5) | |
| A reaction: I think this is dead right. There is a real relativism about knowledge, which exists at the level of justification, rather than of truth. The scientific revolution just consisted of making the standards tougher, and that seems to have been a good idea. |
| 9163 | If we only use induction to assess induction, it is empirically indefeasible, and hence a priori [Field,H] |
| Full Idea: If some inductive rule is basic for us, in the sense that we never assess it using any rules other than itself, then it must be one that we treat as empirically indefeasible (hence as fully a priori, given that it will surely have default status). | |
| From: Hartry Field (Apriority as an Evaluative Notion [2000], 4) | |
| A reaction: This follows on from Field's account of a priori knowledge. See Ideas 9160 and 9164. I think of induction as simply learning from experience, but if experience goes mad I will cease to trust it. (A rationalist view). |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |