Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome
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| Pollock's gas chamber, philosophy: is a thought experiment by J.L. Pollock. A toxic green gas is introduced from time to time into a closed test setup. For protection, a sign is attached which is visible through a window in the door "Do not enter if this sign discolors to green”. If there is a lot of gas, however, the sign is no longer visible. For this reason, a monitor is attached to the outside in connection with a camera inside. This monitor is unfortunately only in black and white ... Variant) a green colored color monitor is brought by the caretaker in accordance with its black and white memory of the sign. (See W. Poundstone, “Labyrinths of Reason”, 1988). See also reliability, reliability theory, causal theory of knowledge, knowledge, justification._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
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W. Poundstone on Pollock’s Gas Chamber - Dictionary of Arguments
I 215f Pollock's gas chamber/Poundstone: one can reject belief in more than one way: 1. the light looks green (without information about the color of the gas) 2. Usually things have the color that they have on the screen, therefore there is color TV. Vs: the second is even weaker than the first. - So there is even a third reason in addition to the sign next to the door. Being right for the wrong reasons: Refutation: a) rejecting: simply says that a belief is false b) undermining: that belief is invalid. E.g. if you discover that you are a brain in a vat, which is an undermining truth over all beliefs about the world. >Refutation, >Verification, cf. >Confirmation, >Brains in vat. N.B.: the belief could then still be true. Undermining better than rejecting truth. I 220 Prisoner's Paradox/knowledge paradox: (unexpected execution) the set of beliefs generates its own undermining truth - so there are refutations of refutations. I 216f Pollock's gas chamber: undermining Vs rejecting refutation. >Paradoxes, >Knowledge paradoxes._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Poundstone I William Poundstone Labyrinths of Reason, NY, 1988 German Edition: Im Labyrinth des Denkens Hamburg 1995 |
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> Counter arguments against Poundstone
> Counter arguments in relation to Pollock’s Gas Chamber
Ed. Martin Schulz, access date 2024-04-29