PHL100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Circular Reasoning, Foundationalism
Document Summary
Zeus condemned him to rolling a boulder up a hill over and over as it kept rolling down once he reached the top. Every reason may be questioned and require its own reason. Four possibilities: an infinite regress of reasons, circular reasoning, foundationalism: find the rock bottom reason, a network of mutually supported reasons. The bible is the word of god because god tells us it is in the bible. Finding the rock bottom reason: all the claims turn out to be floating in air, foundation is floating and therefore not a foundation. Big complicated (cid:862)(cid:272)i(cid:396)(cid:272)le(cid:863), or network, of mutually supporting propositions: Try to identify what kind of reasoning arguments use. Sense: the (cid:862)spe(cid:272)s(cid:863) (cid:449)e ha(cid:448)e i(cid:374) (cid:373)i(cid:374)d: (cid:449)hat so(cid:373)ethi(cid:374)g has to (cid:271)e like to (cid:271)e x (intension) Reference: the things that term picks out in the world. (extension) The size of intension and extension vary inversely: the more you add specs, the fewer things meet it.
