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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The claim that intellectual activities are intrinsically good explains why some instances of knowledge are more important than others.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Pragmatist thinkers like Dewey argue that knowledge gains value from its role in solving concrete problems, not from logical generality.
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    • 2.Trivial knowledge (e.g., a nurse knowing a patient's allergy) can be more important than abstract philosophical knowledge in real contexts.
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    • 3.If importance tracks practical consequence rather than logical sophistication, the claim's ranking criterion fails as a general account.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aristotle distinguished episteme from phronesis, holding that practical wisdom about particulars is irreducibly valuable and not subordinate to general principles.
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    • 2.If phronesis is intrinsically good yet resists reduction to logically general principles, then logical generality cannot explain differential importance among intellectual goods.
      ?

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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Different instances of intellectual activity are good in proportion as they are conducted according to principles discovered by logic.
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    • 2.More philosophical or more general knowledge requires greater and more sophisticated use of principles discovered by logic.
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    • 3.Therefore, more philosophical or general knowledge is better than trivial knowledge (e.g., knowledge of the sex lives of movie stars).
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    Strongest counterpoint
    Explore the most compelling reason on the other side.