Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Meaning and Necessity' and 'Knowledge and its Limits'

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4 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Knowing is the best kind of believing. Mere believing is a kind of botched knowing. In short, belief aims at knowledge (not just truth).
     From: Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000], §1.5)
     A reaction: The difference between aiming at truth and aiming at knowledge has to be in the justificiation, so beliefs aim to be justified. Believers always aim at truth, but they can be strikingly relaxed about justification.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First
Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose]
     Full Idea: Williamson says that instead of being viewed as a concept to be analysed, knowledge should be seen as something useful in the analysis of all sorts of other concepts to epistemology - and to philosophy of mind as well.
     From: report of Timothy Williamson (Knowledge and its Limits [2000]) by Keith DeRose - The Case for Contextualism 1.8
     A reaction: I just don't believe this, because knowledge is obviously a complex state of mind, which invites breaking it down into ingredients. How could knowledge possibly be prior to truth?
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
     Full Idea: Carnap's proposal is to understand the category of intensions appropriate to sentences (his 'propositions') as sets of possible worlds. The intension of the sentence is taken as the set of all possible worlds in which the sentence is true.
     From: report of Rudolph Carnap (Meaning and Necessity [1947]) by David Kaplan - Transworld Heir Lines p.90
     A reaction: [reference?] This extension of the truth-conditions view of meaning strikes me as being very attractive. Except that whole worlds hardly seem to be relevant to my remark about how lunch might have been improved.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
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?