Timeline for Contingent vs. Necessary Truth in Classical Philosophy
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Aug 19, 2021 at 5:56 | comment | added | Gadam | New to philosophy. From your answer can you pls explain difference between ‘Q is true’ vs. ‘Q is necessarily true?’. Or point me to some resource where I can learn about necessity. | |
| Feb 24, 2018 at 2:02 | comment | added | Alex Sotka | I really appreciate the added explanation, esp. that bit about the "metaphysics of the object vs. current state" rings important... Gonna try to chew through this stuff carefully. | |
| Feb 24, 2018 at 1:44 | history | edited | virmaior | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Feb 24, 2018 at 1:39 | comment | added | virmaior | I don't think you're understanding Kenny correctly on that nor do I think he's referring to something narrowly technical. He's referring to their confused understanding of the relationship between knowledge and necessity, but it's not confused in the way that you seem to be taking it. They're confused in that they let necessity apply transitively / in both directions when it only applies (on the modern understanding in one direction. I tried to explain this in my answer... | |
| Feb 24, 2018 at 1:28 | comment | added | Alex Sotka | I was referring to Kenny's comment that "Plato and Aristotle ... again, seem to regard (2) as indistinguishable from (1)", as being a fallacy that "haunts classical epistemology". It seems that Kenny is exactly saying that Aristotle failed to grasp this difference -- to which my initial reaction is: 1. If we're talking about simple examples, it "seems" that Aristotle had more than enough mental power to understand the difference. 2. If we're talking about something "narrowly technical", then it makes me wonder what Kenny means by going so far as to call it a "haunting" fallacy. | |
| Feb 24, 2018 at 0:36 | comment | added | virmaior | I'm not following on why you think Aristotle can't distinguish those two cases, because I think you're jumping to generalize in a way he doesn't have to. You're right that the basic idea is that for Aristotle knowledge is knowledge of essences (primarily) and only then accidents. | |
| Feb 24, 2018 at 0:29 | comment | added | Alex Sotka | Thanks, this definitely adds some clarity. I think I obviously need to read more on the subject, because at this point I don't really understand the "big-picture" implications of this distinction; it's also a bit difficult to fathom that Aristotle would not understand, at least in some way, the difference between, let's say, "all Greek bachelors are unmarried" vs. "all Greek bachelors are less than 8 feet tall"... | |
| Feb 23, 2018 at 8:34 | history | answered | virmaior | CC BY-SA 3.0 |