[lit-ideas] Re: PCA
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 21:28:21 -0700
Walter writes
Could you enlighten
me, and perhaps others?
On the notion of "paradigm cases:"
JL provides some help
Well, it's Mr. and Mrs. Geach.
And PCA should be in the OED. One of the few acronyms I can live with.
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paradigm case argument The argument that since a term, such as
‘certain’ or ‘knowledge’ or ‘free will’, is taught partly with reference
to central cases, any sceptical philosophical position denying that it
applies in those cases must involve an abuse of the term. In one famous
example, we might point to the smiling bridegroom and say that his
choice of his bride is a paradigm example of free choice; hence any
philosophies that reject the notion of free choice are surreptitiously
changing the meaning of the notion, and are therefore out of court. The
argument is widely rejected, on the grounds that even if a term is
taught with reference to central cases, it may only be because of a
cluster of false beliefs that those cases are singled out in the first
place. We may think of the bridegroom as free, but it may be that in so
thinking we have a vision of his decision-making processes (not to
mention those of his bride) that philosophical reflection discredits.
However, investigations of meaning are partly constrained by what we say
about central cases, and there may be fields where some restricted form
of the paradigm case argument is not entirely worthless.
"paradigm case argument" The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Simon
Blackburn. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online.
Oxford University Press. Reed College. 21 April 2009
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t98.e2304>
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Here's another paradigm case of how philosophers exemplify the looks
that go with a philosophical style.
http://tinyurl.com/crtkjz
Robert Paul
Plato thought Nature but a spume that played
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things...
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