http://bactra.org/notebooks Cosma's Notebooks en http://bactra.org/notebooks/1994/10/03#intellectual-standards How well have people thought in different places and times? What are the standards by which thought has been judged? <P>For instance: Pico della Mirandola's <a href="../Mirandola/"><cite>Oration on the Dignity of Man</cite></a> is obviously the product of a very bright and well-read man; but if I got it from one of my students, I'd say he had the critical sense of a magpie, and an appalling habit of twisting other people's words to fit his outlandish notions. (I was rather like that myself as a freshman, being under the influence of <a href="joseph-campbell.html">Joseph Campbell.</a>) Yet this work was extremely well-received at the time, and seems - based on my admittedly limited exposure to Renaissance humanism --- at least par for the course. Did nobody notice? Did nobody care? Is there something I'm missing? <ul>Recommended: <li>Richard Hamilton, <citE>The Social Misconstruction of Reality: Validation and Verification in the Scholarly Community</cite> <li>Larry Laudan, <cite>Science and Values</cite> [i.e., cognitive values; exhibits Laudan's concern with how people reflect on, and modify, their own standards about what counts as a good argument] <li>Stephen Toulmin, <cite>The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts</cite> </ul> <ul>To read: <li>Maurice A. Finocchiaro, <citE>Arguments about Arguments: Systematic, Critical, and Historical Essays in Logical Theory</cite> </ul>