Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

by Simon Blackburn

To process thoughts well is a matter of being able to avoid confusion, detect ambiguities, keep things in mind one at a time, make reliable arguments, become aware of alternatives, and so on. To sum up: our ideas and concepts can be compared with the lenses through which we see the world. In philosophy the lens is itself the topic of study. Success will be a matter not of how much you know at the end, but of what you can do when the going gets tough: when the seas of argument rise, and confusion breaks out. Success will mean taking seriously the implications of ideas.

How you think about what you are doing affects how you do it, or whether you do it at all.

So the middle-ground answer reminds us that reflection is continuous with practice, and our practice can go worse or better according to the value of our reflections.

An argument is valid when there is no way—meaning no possible way—that the premises, or starting points, could be true without the conclusion being true

It is good, then, to remember four options in epistemology (the theory of knowledge). There is rational foundationalism, as attempted by Descartes. There is natural foundationalism, as attempted in Hume. There is coherentism. And brooding over all of them, there is scepticism, or the view that there is no knowledge.

There was a young man who said, ‘Damn, It is borne upon me that I am A creature that moves In predestinate grooves— Not even a bus, but a tram’.

All I am concerned about is that now, at the end of the day, you are a nasty piece of work, and I am going to thump you.