Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Epistemic Justification' and 'Letters to Jacques Lenfant'

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic

12723	The most primitive thing in substances is force, which leads to their actions and dispositions [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Since everything that one conceives in substances reduces to their actions and passions and to the dispositions that they have for this effect, I don't see how one can find there anything more primitive than the principle of all of this, which is force.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Jacques Lenfant [1693], 1693.11.25), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
	A reaction: This is an attempt to connect Aristotelian essentialism with the notion of force in the new physics, and strikes me as an improvement on the original, and as good a basis for metaphysics as any I have heard of.

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 3. Internal or External / a. Pro-internalism

19679	'Access' internalism says responsibility needs access; weaker 'mentalism' needs mental justification [Kvanvig]
	Full Idea: Strong 'access' internalism says the justification must be accessible to the person holding the belief (for cognitive duty, or blame), and weaker 'mentalist' internalism just says the justification must supervene on mental features of the individual.
	From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Epistemic Justification [2011], III)
	A reaction: [compressed] I think I'm a strong access internalist. I doubt whether there is a correct answer to any of this, but my conception of someone knowing something involves being able to invoke their reasons for it. Even if they forget the source.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / a. Foundationalism

19678	Strong foundationalism needs strict inferences; weak version has induction, explanation, probability [Kvanvig]
	Full Idea: Strong foundationalists require truth-preserving inferential links between the foundations and what the foundations support, while weaker versions allow weaker connections, such as inductive support, or best explanation, or probabilistic support.
	From: Jonathan Kvanvig (Epistemic Justification [2011], II)
	A reaction: [He cites Alston 1989] Personally I'm a coherentist about justification, but I'm a fan of best explanation, so I'd vote for that. It's just that best explanation is not a very foundationalist sort of concept. Actually, the strong version is absurd.

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

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?