Disagreement, design, and Thomas Reid

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. 224-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
René van Woudenberg
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Basic Design ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Epistemology Of Disagreement ◽  
The One

This paper argues that Reid's first principle of design can be more widely accepted then one might suppose, due to the fact that it specifies no marks of design. Also it is explicated that the relation of the principle, on the one hand, and properly basic design beliefs on the other, is a relation of presupposition. It is furthermore suggested that Reid's discussion of what can be done in case of disagreement about first principles points to a position that is relevant to the current debates in the Epistemology of Disagreement literature and that merits further elaboration.

THEOPHRASTUS ON PLATONIC AND ‘PYTHAGOREAN’ IMITATION

2013 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 686-712 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phillip Sidney Horky
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Equal Share ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The One ◽  
The Universe

In the twenty-fourth aporia of Theophrastus'Metaphysics, there appears an important, if ‘bafflingly elliptical’, ascription to Plato and the ‘Pythagoreans’ of a theory of reduction to the first principles via ‘imitation’ (μίμησις):Πλάτων δὲ καὶ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι μακρὰν τὴν ἀπόστασιν, ἐπιμιμεῖσθαι τ' ἐθέλειν ἅπαντα· καίτοι καθάπερ ἀντίθεσιν τινα ποιοῦσιν τῆς ἀορίστου δυάδος καὶ τοῦ ἑνός, ἐν ᾗ καὶ τὸ ἄπειρον καὶ τὸ ἄτακτον καὶ ὡς εἰπεῖν πᾶσα ἀμορφία καθ' αὑτήν, ὅλως δ' οὐχ οἷον τ' ἄνευ ταύτης τὴν τοὺ ὅλου φύσιν, ἀλλ' οἷον ἰσομοιρεῖν ἢ καὶ ὑπερέχειν τῆς ἐτέρας, ᾗ καὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς ἐναντίας. Διὸ καὶ οὐδὲ τὸν θεόν, ὅσοι τῷ θεῷ τὴν αἰτίαν ἀνάπτουσιν, δύνασθαι πάντ' εἰς τὸ ἄριστον ἄγειν, ἀλλ' εἴπερ, ἐφ' ὅσον ἐνδέχεται· τάχα δ' οὐδ' ἂν προέλοιτ', εἴπερ ἀναιρεῖσθαι συμβήσεται τὴν ὅλην οὐσίαν ἐξ ἐναντίων γε καὶ ἐν ἐναντίοις οὖσαν.(Theophrastus,Metaphysics, 11a26–b12)Plato and the Pythagoreans make the distance [between the first principles and everything else] a great one, and they make all things desire to imitate fully; and yet, they set up a certain opposition, as it were, between the Indefinite Dyad and the One. In the former [resides] the Unlimited and the Unordered and, as it were, all Shapelessness as such; and they make it altogether impossible for the nature of the universe to exist without this [that is, the Indefinite Dyad] – it [that is, the Indefinite Dyad] could only have an equal share in things, or even exceed the other [first principle, that is, the One] – whereby they also make their first principles contrary [to one another]. Therefore, those who ascribe causation to the god claim that not even the god is able to reduce all things to the best, but, even if at all, only in so far as is possible. And perhaps he wouldn't even choose to, if indeed it were to result in the destruction of all existence, given that it [that is, existence] is constituted from contraries and consists of contraries.

Desire all the way down

2000 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROXANNE LYNN DOTY
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
First Principles ◽  
International Relations Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Ir Theory ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Metaphysical Foundation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Way

Alex Wendt's Social Theory of International Politics demonstrates perhaps more long and hard thought about social theory and its implications for international relations theory than most international relations scholars have dared to venture into. He admirably attempts to do in an explicit manner what most scholars in the discipline do only implicitly and often accidentally: suggest a social theory to serve as the foundation for theorizing about international relations. However, there are problems with his approach, a hint of which can be found in the epigraph he has chosen: ‘No science can be more secure than the unconscious metaphysics, which tacitly it presupposes’. Because metaphysics cannot ultimately be proven or disproved, it is inherently insecure. The insecurity and instability of the metaphysical presuppositions present in Social Theory are not difficult to find, and what Wendt ends up demonstrating, despite his objective not to, is the absence of any secure, stable, and unambiguous metaphysical foundation upon which IR theory could be firmly anchored. Indeed, what Social Theory does illustrate is that there is no such ultimate centre within the discipline except the powerful desire to maintain the illusion of first principles and the essential nature of things. If I may paraphrase Wendt, this is a ‘desire all the way down’ in that it permeates his relentless quest for the essence of international relations. Two goals characterize this desire: on the one hand, to take a critical stance toward more conventional international relations theory such as neorealism and neoliberalism; on the other, to maintain unity, stability, and order within the discipline. Social Theory oscillates between these two goals and in doing so deconstructs the very foundations it seeks to lay.

scholarly journals A plea for syntax and a return to first principles: monstrous agreement in Tamil

2011 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandhya Sundaresan
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Full Range ◽  
The Other ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Contextual Features ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Dravidian Language

The paper focuses on an interesting form of (person) indexical shift in the Dravidian language Tamil which surfaces as 1SG agreement marking in a clause embedded under a speech predicate. I show that this agreement is an instance of indexical shift and label it "monstrous agreement". However, I demonstrate that its full range of empirical properties cannot be adequately explained by the major analyses of indexical shift in the literature. The bulk of these, I argue, in addition to being predominantly semantic in spirit, and thus ill-equipped to deal with a morphosyntactic phenomenon like agreement, also involve two core misconceptions regarding indexicality vs. logophoricity on the one hand and speech vs. attitude predicates on the other. I propose that these core assumptions be strongly re-evaluated from first principles and that syntactic and typological clues on the subject be paid more heed. I propose a new analysis of the Tamil paradigms which derives indexical shift within an enriched grammatical model involving contextual features instantiated in a structurally articulated cartographic left periphery.

Thomas Reid: Philosophy, Science, and the Christian Revelation

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-38
Author(s):  
Roberto Di Ceglie
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Philosophical Reflection ◽  
Scientific Investigations ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The One

Two significant aspects of Thomas Reid's thought seem to be irreconcilable with one another. On the one hand, Reid constantly refers to the substantive benefits which human knowledge receives from the Christian revelation. On the other hand, he does not justify philosophical or scientific beliefs by way of appeal to God. In this essay, I argue that a closer inspection of both Reid's philosophical reflection and scientific investigations shows that the two aspects just mentioned are compatible with one another. In short, although an influence on rational investigation is somehow exerted by divine revelation, this does not limit the autonomy of reason, which is actually stimulated and promoted precisely because of a religiously rooted confidence in our rational faculties.

Common Sense and First Principles in Sidgwick's Methods

1994 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 179-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
David O. Brink
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
First Principle ◽  
Moral Intuitions ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
Considered Moral Judgments ◽  
Moral Convictions

What role, if any, should our moral intuitions play in moral epistemology? We make, or are prepared to make, moral judgments about a variety of actual and hypothetical situations. Some of these moral judgments are more informed, reflective, and stable than others (call these our considered moral judgments); some we make more confidently than others; and some, though not all, are judgments about which there is substantial consensus. What bearing do our moral judgments have on philosophical ethics and the search for first principles in ethics? Should these judgments constrain, or be constrained by, philosophical theorizing about morality? On the one hand, we might expect first principles to conform to our moral intuitions or at least to our considered moral judgments. After all, we begin the reflection that may lead to first principles from particular moral convictions. And some of our moral intuitions (e.g., that genocide is wrong) are more fixed and compelling than any putative first principle. If so, we might expect common moral beliefs to have an important evidential role in the construction and assessment of first principles. On the other hand, common moral beliefs often rest on poor information, reflect bias, or are otherwise mistaken. We often appeal to moral principles to justify our particular moral convictions or to resolve our disagreements. Insofar as this is true, we may expect first principles to provide a foundation on the basis of which to test common moral beliefs and, where necessary, form new moral convictions.

On the Relation between the Theories of Compound Interest and Life Contingencies

1907 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-348
Author(s):  
John Mayhew Allen
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
The Other ◽  
General Aspect ◽  
Integral Calculus ◽  
Infinitesimal Calculus ◽  
General Hypothesis ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Logical Sequence ◽  
The One ◽  
Compound Interest

It has often occurred to me that but scant justice has been done to the application of the infinitesimal calculus to the theories of compound interest and life contingencies. This is, perhaps, in some measure due to the popular relegation of the differential and integral calculus to the realms of the so-called “higher mathematics.” There are, of course, two aspects of the case to be borne in mind. On the one hand, it is necessary to present the subjects in such a form as will be best suited to the student who is commencing to study them. For this purpose experience shows that a start should be made with particular cases, leaving the generalization until such time as the student shall have obtained a grasp of first principles sufficient to enable him to view the subjects in their general aspect. On the other hand, however, there is no doubt that to the reflective mind there comes a time when the desire is felt to invert the process and deduce the formulæ in their logical sequence from a fundamental general hypothesis.

Estimation from first principles

1973 ◽  
Vol 57 (401) ◽  
pp. 169-174
Author(s):  
B.J.R. Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Maximum Likelihood ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Unbiased Estimator ◽  
Point Estimation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Introductory Statistics ◽  
Method Of Maximum Likelihood ◽  
The One ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Cautionary Tales

A number of introductory statistics books published during recent years have presented the basic theory of point estimation (see, for example, [1]–[4]). The time now seems ripe for a few cautionary tales to be told, or retold, for there is more to the estimation of a parameter than searching for an unbiased estimator or maximising the likelihood of a random sample. Having said that, I need at once to emphasise the distinction between methods of estimation on the one hand, and properties of estimators on the other. For a particular problem, the method of maximum likelihood, fcr example, provides a possible set of estimators for the parameters involved. Other methods such as least squares or minimum-χ2 might provide alternatives; but no estimator should ever be put to use until its properties have been investigated in some depth. And here lies the rub; for, as I intend to show in the following paragraphs, the choice of criteria by which one estimator is judged superior to another rests, ultimately, with the individual statistician or researcher responsible for the estimate produced. In other words, no completely objective solution to the estimation problem is tenable.

scholarly journals Aristotle’s Method of Understanding the First Principles of Natural Things in the Physics I.1

2013 ◽  
pp. 31-50
Author(s):  
Melina G. Mouzala
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Natural World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Perceptual Knowledge ◽  
Posterior Analytics ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The One

This paper presents Aristotle’s method of understanding the first principles of natural things in the Physics I.1 and analyzes the three stages of which this method consists. In the Physics I.1, Aristotle suggests that the natural proper route which one has to follow in order to find out the first principles of natural things is to proceed from what is clearer and more knowable to us to what is more knowable and clear by nature. In the Physics I.1, the terms καθόλου (universal) and καθ΄ ἕκαστα (particular) are not used in their usual meaning (e.g., the meaning which the same terms have in the Posterior Analytics I. 2). This paper examines the Physics I.1 in comparison with the Posterior Analytics II. 19 in order to elucidate the meaning of καθόλου in the first chapter of Aristotle’s Physics. Furthermore, it reaches the conclusion that the structure of the natural world to which we belong determines the structure and the form of our knowledge. On the one hand, natural things are composite and, on the other hand, perception is involved in the initial grasping of natural things as composites. Thus, since perceptual knowledge is more accessible to us than any other kind of knowledge it is natural to reach knowledge of simple things, i.e., of the principles, starting our inquiry with the composites.

scholarly journals A plea for syntax and a return to first principles: monstrous agreement in Tamil

2015 ◽  
pp. 674
Author(s):  
Sandhya Sundaresan
Keyword(s):  
First Principles ◽  
Full Range ◽  
The Other ◽  
Left Periphery ◽  
Contextual Features ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One ◽  
Dravidian Language

The paper focuses on an interesting form of (person) indexical shift in the Dravidian language Tamil which surfaces as 1SG agreement marking in a clause embedded under a speech predicate. I show that this agreement is an instance of indexical shift and label it "monstrous agreement". However, I demonstrate that its full range of empirical properties cannot be adequately explained by the major analyses of indexical shift in the literature. The bulk of these, I argue, in addition to being predominantly semantic in spirit, and thus ill-equipped to deal with a morphosyntactic phenomenon like agreement, also involve two core misconceptions regarding indexicality vs. logophoricity on the one hand and speech vs. attitude predicates on the other. I propose that these core assumptions be strongly re-evaluated from first principles and that syntactic and typological clues on the subject be paid more heed. I propose a new analysis of the Tamil paradigms which derives indexical shift within an enriched grammatical model involving contextual features instantiated in a structurally articulated cartographic left periphery.

Dynamics Induced by Femtosecond Laser and Photovoltaic Phenomena Studied by Using Time-Dependent First Principles Method

2012 ◽  
Vol 1455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiyuki Miyamoto
Keyword(s):  
Femtosecond Laser ◽  
First Principles ◽  
Density Functional ◽  
The Other ◽  
Time Dependent ◽  
Ion Dynamics ◽  
Functional Theory ◽  
Photovoltaic Materials ◽  
The One ◽  
Dependent Density

ABSTRACTIn this work, the first-principles computational scheme of electron-ion dynamics based on the time-dependent density functional theory is presented as a tool to study dynamical phenomena induced by light. Two applications of computations for photo-induced phenomena are shown. The one is structural change induced by intense and short laser shot with a purpose to simulate experiments using the femtosecond laser. The other is photo-excitation and subsequent carrier splitting into electrons and holes, which is a key process needed in photovoltaic materials.

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