RE: why do we enjoy poetry From the perspective of neuroscience?
January 16, 2019 at 10:42 pm
(This post was last modified: January 16, 2019 at 10:47 pm by Belacqua.)
(January 16, 2019 at 10:31 am)Thoreauvian Wrote: The book tackles questions I find of more interest.
That's no problem. It's certainly an interesting topic, and I enjoy getting up-to-date information.
Not you, but some people are likely to go too far, and claim that the book answers questions that it doesn't. I've seen that before, with books on Big Questions.
(January 16, 2019 at 9:18 pm)Thoreauvian Wrote: philosophers think knowledge must be certain, while in fact our best knowledge always seems to come with probabilities.
That's an interesting thing to say. I hadn't heard that before.
It's true that the standard definition of knowledge is "justified true belief." So by that definition, something that isn't true isn't knowledge. But this is generally invoked to remind us that what we hold to be true is more tentatively held than we are inclined to remember. That what we call knowledge now, if disproved, we will call belief later on.
But what philosopher thinks we have to disregard things we aren't certain of? I mean, they all do their best to prove their cases, but as far as I know most of them accept that we can't be sure of very much.
After all, Socrates, who got the whole thing rolling, taught that self-doubt is the beginning of wisdom. And he leaves a number of his dialogues with no solid conclusion -- just an aporia.
