There's so much going on that it is very hard to keep up with everything. I'm afraid I don't even try. There's a reason why I'm not. I oscillate betwe...
Well, I can see that a Dutch book would be a bad idea. On the other hand, there is the possibility of a "Czech book", in which the probabilities add u...
Quite right. Well put. It's odd, isn't it, how people yearn for peace when they don't have it, and cannot resist starting a conflict when they do? The...
That seems to be right. Given the hostility that there so often is between ideologies, I would expect that to be a major factor in how people decide t...
Perhaps "correctly" is over-stating it. But it is also possible to revise my interpretation in the light of more and better information or even to act...
That's not quite right. Obviously, if you want to refute a belief in order to persuade the believer to give up their belief, then you must, as it were...
I'm not sure what the model is, but the other components are pretty obvious. Perhaps the Bayesian theory works - I wouldn't know how to assess it. Can...
So we are not really in conflict - just talking about different things. Fair enough. As it happens, I regard the history, origin and purpose of ideas ...
quote="neomac;1000226"]The fact that there are beliefs universally shared doesn't spare us from the predicament of non-shared beliefs. And attributing...
The interesting question is what makes universal acquiescence impossible. I suppose it is possible that two different ideologies might be compatible, ...
Thank you. But it is better not to bore on about something to someone who is not interested. But since you've opened the door.... Even if you are not ...
I would very much like to know who wrote the passage you are quoting. Just curious. Yes. But those details are what give you the evidence of the degre...
I'm sorry but who wrote that - I can't work it out. My response is to point out that betting £1000 on the truth of a given proposition is a very diffe...
There's an intricate relationship between degrees of belief and belief in probabilities, which I find confusing. It looks to me as if "S has a x degre...
I don't understand your enthusiasm for Ramsey. (Not that I've actually read him!). But the idea that induction is really just about probability is not...
So he does. So I think that Dodgson's focus is on the force (!) of the logical "must", which we all take for granted. One might perhaps think that thi...
If you look at his chosen example, the answer must be yes. But his list of things that might/do discipline philosophy is varied, so I don't think he w...
I'm glad I hit that nail fair and square... That sounds very much like my cup or tea. It's time there was a backlash. Sadly, at that price, it will be...
I agree with that. It's part of the jargon, so you will miss out if you have no idea what it's all about. Yes. I know roughly what you mean. But makin...
That's good advice. I find it particularly important when I'm confronted with sweeping statements beginning "Art is...." (or whatever). I don't disagr...
You're offering an ostensive definition, and your problem is that when you point to a proposition "the bolded part", I see a sentence. If you think ab...
Um - forgive me. But that's what I call a sentence; I would say that when it is used - to tell someone where the cat is, for example, - it becomes a s...
Quite right. How about "collection of sentences that enable us to say that the cat is on the mat in different ways" or "collection of ways to say that...
Yes. There are two points that one can make to articulate the difference. The first is that the relationship is what is called "defeasible". That mean...
I've heard of the judgement stroke, but no-one has ever explained to me what it does before. Thank you for that. I can see that this allows one to exp...
Yes. None of that is in question. Though you are assuming/presupposing that the speaker does not know that the cat = jack. Question - suppose that the...
Well, I do see this as a puzzle. I'm inclined to say that if the speaker knows that the cat's name is Jack, then they do also believe that Jack is on ...
As someone who was away from philosophy for fifteen years or so before I joined TPF, it is also very handy for me. I'm going to have to work out how t...
I wouldn't say that. I reckon that Williamson makes it pretty clear which side he's on right through th meat of the article (say pp. 4 - 9). It's a bi...
I'm sorry if I over-reacted. I'm a bit obsessed about the need to kill the idea of a meaning-object. It's called a proposition in standard philosophes...
Well, Frege built his logic around the concept of a proposition, and I believe that Russell &co followed him. If that concept is a mess, answering you...
He is recommending that and also more than that. This is a remarkably heterogeneous list. He discusses two cases. "technical work by philosophical and...
I sympathize with Davidson's project. But I can't see that "The speaker holds true..." is at all helpful. What's unclear about "X believes that the ca...
Sometimes my typing is an embarrassment. I should have said "That's why I thought the ready-to-hand was the primordial understanding." So Descartes' m...
Thanks very much for that. I think I can follow most of it. OK. Mischievous questions. Does the totality of relevance include what Derrida calls brico...
There's clearly a logical space between the two. If the first is true, the second may be true or false. If the second is true, the first may be true o...
I must have misunderstood something. Heidegger understands our cognitive, theoretical, stance as "present-at-hand" and our real-life experience as "re...
I'm sorry I've not been here for so long. H'm. Well, there's no stopping people using a term like metaphysics in a different way. But I can't set asid...
Poor old W - he must be spinning in his grave. I can see that, in some ways, metaphysical systems may play a part in our lives similar to the part he ...
Fascinating. It looks like a flaw to me. Inattention is feeble. But it is possible to make mistakes in calculations and draw incorrect inferences, tho...
Well, yes. In a way. But in case like this, you may find that people will infer that metaphysical speculations are always uncertain. But that's mislea...
I'm afraid that I have never understood exactly what metaphysical certainty is, so I'm not going to express an opinion. I agree that it's not a questi...
I've not heard that before, that I remember. It cuts out a lot of messing about, so it is a very interesting idea. So we can paraphrase it as "Wheneve...
Yes. Though I don't think he would have thought of it that way. Most likely, he would have thought of reason as the primary source of knowledge. There...
Yes. There are some topics that benefit greatly from literature. Ethics is a prime example; Politics is another. A thumbnail sketch may be good enough...
That indeed is the alternative - except that it might have been more than a year, more than two - nobody knows. I have to admit, though, that I would ...
Quite so. Truman's decision is not standing up well to the scrutiny of history. But he was balancing the destruction of dropping the bomb (and no-one ...
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