On Fri, 08 Dec 2000 01:26:39 -0000 "Justin Schwartz" <jkschw at hotmail.com>
writes:
>
> >
> >
>
>
> >
> >Could you elaborate on "It derives from the relations between the
> >warranting beliefs that we hops ( hope ?) make the truth of the
> warranted
> >belief more probable" ?
> >
>
> The basic idea is very simple: the reasons we have to believe things
> are
> other reasons, beliefs all the way back: thus, I believe in atoms
> because
> scientists believe in them; I believe that scientists are the right
> people
> to ask about what the world is made of, etc.; if you ask the
> scientists,
> they will point to a lot of experiments interpreted by other
> scientists,
> e.g., Einstein's graet paper on Brownian motion (proving that there
> are
> atoms). Of course atoms aren't beliefs, but the reasons we have to
> believe
> in atoms are all beliefs.
>
> Now, to believe something to believe that it is true, so the reason
> we give
> raesons to believe things is to enhance the likelihood that the
> belief we
> seek to support is true. To give a reason is to argue that a
> proposition
> should be accepted because the reason makes it more likely (even
> certain)
> that the proposition is true. That is what makes it a reason.
>
> This is controversial: some argue that reasons just enhance the
> likelihopod
> that we will be able to predict and control events, that that and
> not truth
> is all we care about. But I think otherwise, in part because it
> seems quite
> mysterious to me how we could predict and control events on the
> basis of our
> beliefs if there was no truth for them to be true of.
>
> This account is based on the epistemology of Wilfrid Sellars, a
> great
> pragmatic realist who was influenced, among other things, by Engels.
That account also looks a lot like Quine's. He among other things sought to reconcile the correspondence and coherence theories of truth together. Although, he was influenced most strongly by Rudolf Carnap, he has always liked to quote Otto Neurath who was a type of Marxist. BTW did Sellars consider himself to be a Marxist? And if so, did he write anything of consequence on Marxism?
Jim F.
>
> > >
>
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