11 ideas
| 6259 | Why can't a wise man doubt everything? [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: Why cannot a wise man dare to doubt anything and everything? | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0562) | |
| A reaction: This question seems to be the start of the Enlightenment Project, of attempting to prove everything. MacIntyre warns of the dangers of this in ethical theory. The story of modern philosophy is the discovery of its impossibility. E.g. Davidson on truth. |
| 6263 | No wisdom could make us comfortably walk a wide beam if it was high in the air [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: Take a beam wide enough to walk along: suspend it between two towers: there is no philosophical wisdom, however firm, which could make us walk along it just as we would if we were on the ground. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0672) | |
| A reaction: This proposes great scepticism about the practical application of philosophical wisdom, but if we talk in terms of the wise assessment of risk in any undertaking, our caution on the raised beam makes perfectly good sense. |
| 8833 | Why should we prefer coherent beliefs? [Klein,P] |
| Full Idea: A key question for a coherentist is, why should he or she adopt a coherent set of beliefs rather than an incoherent set? | |
| From: Peter Klein (Infinitism solution to regress problem [2005], 'Step 1') | |
| A reaction: The point of the question is that the coherentist may have to revert to other criteria in answering it. One could equally ask, why should I believe in tables just because I vividly experience them? Or, why believe 2+2=4, just because it is obvious? |
| 6258 | Virtue is the distinctive mark of truth, and its greatest product [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: The distinctive mark of the Truth we hold ought to be virtue, which is the most exacting mark of Truth, the closest one to heaven and the most worthy thing that Truth produces. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0493) | |
| A reaction: A long way from Tarski and minimalist theories of truth! But not so far from pragmatism. Personally I think Montaigne is making an important claim, which virtue theorists should be attempting to incorporate into their theory. Aristotle would sympathise. |
| 6262 | We lack some sense or other, and hence objects may have hidden features [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: We may all lack some sense or other; because of that defect, most of the features of objects may be concealed from us. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0666) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as simple, straightforward common sense, and right. I cannot make sense of the claim that reality really is just the way it appears. We do not have a built-in neutrino detector, for example. |
| 8834 | Infinitism avoids a regress, circularity or arbitrariness, by saying warrant just increases [Klein,P] |
| Full Idea: Infinitism can solve the regress problem, because it endorses a warrant-emergent form of reasoning in which warrant increases as the series of reasons lengthens. The theory can avoid both circularity and arbitrariness. | |
| From: Peter Klein (Infinitism solution to regress problem [2005], 'Step 2') | |
| A reaction: It nicely avoids arbitrariness by offering a reason for absolutely every belief. I think the way to go may to combine individual Infinitism with a social account of where to set the bar of acceptable justification. |
| 8838 | If justification is endless, no link in the chain is ultimately justified [Ginet on Klein,P] |
| Full Idea: An endless chain of inferential justifications can never ultimately explain why any link in the chain is justified. | |
| From: comment on Peter Klein (Infinitism solution to regress problem [2005]) by Carl Ginet - Infinitism not solution to regress problem p.148 | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a mere yearning for foundations. I don't see sense-experience or the natural light of human reason (or the word of God, for that matter) as in any way 'ultimate'. It's all evidence to be evaluated. |
| 8839 | Reasons acquire warrant through being part of a lengthening series [Klein,P] |
| Full Idea: The infinitist holds that finding a reason, and then another reason for that reason, places it at the beginning of a series where each gains warrant as part of the series. ..Rational credibility increases as the series lengthens. | |
| From: Peter Klein (Infinitism solution to regress problem [2005], p.137) | |
| A reaction: A striking problem here for Klein is the status of the first reason, prior to it being supported by a series. Surprisingly, it seems that it would not yet be a justification. Coherence accounts have the same problem, if coherence is the only criterion. |
| 6260 | Sceptics say there is truth, but no means of making or testing lasting judgements [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: Pyrrhonians say that truth and falsehood exist; within us we have means of looking for them, but not of making any lasting judgements: we have no touchstone. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0564) | |
| A reaction: This states the key difference between sceptics and relativists. The latter are more extreme as they say there is no such thing as truth. The former concede truth, and their scepticism is about the abilities of human beings. I am an anti-relativist. |
| 6261 | The soul is in the brain, as shown by head injuries [Montaigne] |
| Full Idea: The seat of the powers of the soul is in the brain, as is clearly shown by the fact that wounds and accidents affecting the head immediately harm the faculties of the soul. | |
| From: Michel de Montaigne (Apology for Raymond Sebond [1580], p.0614) | |
| A reaction: At last someone has finally got the facts clear. It seems surprising that the Greeks never clearly grasped this piece of irrefutable evidence - even those Greeks who speculated that the brain was the key. Here we have a fixed fact of philosophy of mind. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| 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'). |