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    Many of our own acts are known with certainty equal to fi... — Carmelics
    Home/Truth & Knowledge
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    Many of our own acts are known with certainty equal to first principles

    Truth & Knowledge
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.Some contingent propositions must be known immediately, without derivation from other propositions
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    • 2.If no contingent proposition were known immediately, either a contingent proposition would follow from a necessary proposition (which is impossible) or there would be an infinite regress in contingent propositions (in which case no contingent proposition would ever be known)
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    • 3.The contingency of our acts is not a disqualifying objection
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Introspective reports about mental acts are systematically fallible, as Freudian unconscious motivation and Nisbett & Wilson's 1977 empirical work on introspection demonstrate.
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    • 2.If our access to our own acts were genuinely certain, self-deception would be conceptually impossible, yet self-deception is a well-documented and philosophically robust phenomenon.
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    • 3.Certainty equal to first principles requires indubitability, but acts of willing or perceiving can be doubted under Cartesian dream and demon scenarios without contradiction.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Scotus's argument against infinite regress in contingent knowledge presupposes that immediate apprehension of one's own acts constitutes propositional knowledge, which Sellars's critique of the Myth of the Given denies.
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    • 2.If immediate acquaintance with mental acts does not automatically yield justified belief-that, then the regress problem Scotus cites fails to establish certainty rather than mere causal reliability of inner sense.
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    Topics

    Truth & Knowledge

    Connections

    2 topics

    Modality & Possibility1 linkedMoral Responsibility1 linked

    Related

    Certainty equal to first principles requires indubitability, but acts of willing...If immediate acquaintance with mental acts does not automatically yield justifie...If no contingent proposition were known immediately, either a contingent proposi...If our access to our own acts were genuinely certain, self-deception would be co...
    +4 moreShow less
    Introspective reports about mental acts are systematically fallible, as Freudian...Scotus's argument against infinite regress in contingent knowledge presupposes t...

    Similar

    Knowledge of first principles is certain83%The belief that we are endowed with power to produce our own actions i...80%A first principle must be utterly unconditioned — its certainty must n...78%Anything properly derived from first principles by syllogistic inferen...77%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: duns-scotus
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    So Henry’s arguments, far from showing that certainty is possible through divine illumination, actually lead to a pervasive skepticism. Scotus counters that we can show that skepticism is false. We can in fact attain certainty, and we can do so by the unaided exercise of our natural intellectual powers. There are four types of knowledge in which infallible certainty is possible. First, knowledge of first principles is certain because the intellect has only to form such judgments to see that they
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Some contingent propositions must be known immediately, without derivation from ...
    The contingency of our acts is not a disqualifying objection
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit