Clarity and Arguments
Apr. 3rd, 2005 12:11 pmPhilosophers would not have to make arguments if they what they said was clear to begin with. It seems you can either show the map of the issues, in all explicitness, upfront; or you can have a thousand specifying arguments in attendance. But in the latter the details left out in the formerl viewpoint are divided (rather artificially) into arguments, and subdivided into premises and conclusions. (If you were to advance theses in "philosophy"--when "philosophy" just lays things out in full detail--everyone would agree to them.)
Parallel: if everyone witness to some situation were to describe it in full detail--including acknowledgment of their background, perspective, etc., no one would disagree about what "really" happened. The latter might be epistemically odd: it requires you either to incorporate 3rd person sizing-up of your perspective into your perspective--; then again, common humility ("well, that's the way it seemed to me, from where I was standing") has the same effect. Enough qualifications = infallibility. But do these qualifications add "content" to beliefs or subtract it? Support for falliblism: a belief can be infallible only if it has no content. Possible response: an infallible belief would have content; a lot of content--maybe too much. But it isn't clear how much qualification we can do and still be sane, and still have "beliefs." That is, beliefs (of the kind that purport to be right about things) have an element of 3rd person-ness; but if we have to believe something, it's because we don't know for sure. God has no beliefs--but perhaps only God could articulate in full perspectival detail what everyone saw such that they would agree about what happened.
Parallel: if everyone witness to some situation were to describe it in full detail--including acknowledgment of their background, perspective, etc., no one would disagree about what "really" happened. The latter might be epistemically odd: it requires you either to incorporate 3rd person sizing-up of your perspective into your perspective--; then again, common humility ("well, that's the way it seemed to me, from where I was standing") has the same effect. Enough qualifications = infallibility. But do these qualifications add "content" to beliefs or subtract it? Support for falliblism: a belief can be infallible only if it has no content. Possible response: an infallible belief would have content; a lot of content--maybe too much. But it isn't clear how much qualification we can do and still be sane, and still have "beliefs." That is, beliefs (of the kind that purport to be right about things) have an element of 3rd person-ness; but if we have to believe something, it's because we don't know for sure. God has no beliefs--but perhaps only God could articulate in full perspectival detail what everyone saw such that they would agree about what happened.