PHIL 100W Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Gary Watson, Compatibilism, Incompatibilism
1 Nov 2017
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Document Summary
Brought up by james, one of which rightly says has been mostly ignored. We want to know the truth but also want to avoid error. Sometimes 2 norms - to know truth & avoid error, will give us opposing instructions. In this case, we will pursue truth, but at cost of increased errors, more false positives. But if we have very conservative test, then it won"t report that we have condition sometimes when we have it. It will avoid error - it won"t report things as having the condition that don"t, but at cost of missing some truths - missing some cases where condition does obtain. James wants to point out problem - which should be aim. Philosophers have mostly chosen to avoid error, but this is a specific commitment & does not necessarily have to be followed. Descartes thinks we should avoid error & therefore not believe various things.
