Source of All Knowledge
At the end of Cratylus by Plato the source of all knowledge is discussed. Despite Socrates’ objections against Cratylus’ extreme naturalism throughout their dialogue, Cratylus still argues that etymology (the study of word origins) is the only reliable path for the pursuit of knowledge. Socrates however doubts Cratylus by pointing out: the degree of trust given to legislators (ones that have the power to name things), where they got their knowledge from and the coherence of word(s) being right and wrong consistently throughout changes and transitions of language (flux).
Thus for Socrates, nothing in flux could be known because the continuous process of transition will yield no knowledge. He further states “but if that …show more content…
Referred to as Mentalese, this language is innate and provides us with a set of rules to understand the description of things. To have these rules, you must already be able to internally represent that rule i.e. using the words in Mentalese. Fodor suggests that the source of all our knowledge can be broken down to simple blocks of internal representations in Mentalese. For example, the knowledge of “chairness” entails having an innate ability to internally represent its rules. The rules explain what counts as a chair (Martin …show more content…
During the learning process of associating an object to a predicate, the latter could have been in transition. So one would not know whether it is right or wrong and in this case it would be both coherently.
However a private language of thought also suggests that the origin of words is not important in the pursuit of knowledge; it is actually rather irrelevant. To have knowledge of a word is to have mental representations of the predicates it belongs to. This is done by our internal language of thought which is basically neurological activity in the brain. For example the knowledge of “cat” is being able to represent the concept of “cat” in the brain. This is acquired by some kind of neurological pattern that informs about the characteristics of a “cat” (“is an animal”, “is cute”, etc.).
Socrates also questions where the legislators got their knowledge from, and whether they are reliable authority to base this knowledge on. According to Fodor we already have an innate language of thought that we use to represent things and concepts in our brain. Thus when the legislators assign names, they already had an innate ability to represent the object they are referring to in their brains. Its name then is associated with the representation in our innate language of thought i.e. the word in Mentalese. This means that the origin of words is a reliable source of knowledge as by uttering and learning
At the end of Cratylus by Plato the source of all knowledge is discussed. Despite Socrates’ objections against Cratylus’ extreme naturalism throughout their dialogue, Cratylus still argues that etymology (the study of word origins) is the only reliable path for the pursuit of knowledge. Socrates however doubts Cratylus by pointing out: the degree of trust given to legislators (ones that have the power to name things), where they got their knowledge from and the coherence of word(s) being right and wrong consistently throughout changes and transitions of language (flux).
Thus for Socrates, nothing in flux could be known because the continuous process of transition will yield no knowledge. He further states “but if that …show more content…
Referred to as Mentalese, this language is innate and provides us with a set of rules to understand the description of things. To have these rules, you must already be able to internally represent that rule i.e. using the words in Mentalese. Fodor suggests that the source of all our knowledge can be broken down to simple blocks of internal representations in Mentalese. For example, the knowledge of “chairness” entails having an innate ability to internally represent its rules. The rules explain what counts as a chair (Martin …show more content…
During the learning process of associating an object to a predicate, the latter could have been in transition. So one would not know whether it is right or wrong and in this case it would be both coherently.
However a private language of thought also suggests that the origin of words is not important in the pursuit of knowledge; it is actually rather irrelevant. To have knowledge of a word is to have mental representations of the predicates it belongs to. This is done by our internal language of thought which is basically neurological activity in the brain. For example the knowledge of “cat” is being able to represent the concept of “cat” in the brain. This is acquired by some kind of neurological pattern that informs about the characteristics of a “cat” (“is an animal”, “is cute”, etc.).
Socrates also questions where the legislators got their knowledge from, and whether they are reliable authority to base this knowledge on. According to Fodor we already have an innate language of thought that we use to represent things and concepts in our brain. Thus when the legislators assign names, they already had an innate ability to represent the object they are referring to in their brains. Its name then is associated with the representation in our innate language of thought i.e. the word in Mentalese. This means that the origin of words is a reliable source of knowledge as by uttering and learning