41 ideas
| 7920 | Descriptive metaphysics aims at actual structure, revisionary metaphysics at a better structure [Strawson,P] |
| 13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
| 7922 | Descriptive metaphysics concerns unchanging core concepts and categories [Strawson,P] |
| 16252 | Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap] |
| 7921 | Close examination of actual word usage is the only sure way in philosophy [Strawson,P] |
| 10842 | The fact which is stated by a true sentence is not something in the world [Strawson,P] |
| 10843 | Facts aren't exactly true statements, but they are what those statements say [Strawson,P] |
| 10844 | The statement that it is raining perfectly fits the fact that it is raining [Strawson,P] |
| 10841 | The word 'true' always refers to a possible statement [Strawson,P] |
| 13342 | Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution [Tarski on Carnap] |
| 13251 | Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap] |
| 8358 | There are no rules for the exact logic of ordinary language, because that doesn't exist [Strawson,P] |
| 6413 | 'The present King of France is bald' presupposes existence, rather than stating it [Strawson,P, by Grayling] |
| 8354 | Russell asks when 'The King of France is wise' would be a true assertion [Strawson,P] |
| 13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
| 8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
| 8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
| 13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
| 13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
| 13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
| 16980 | We need a logical use of 'object' as predicate-worthy, and an 'ontological' use [Strawson,P] |
| 13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
| 16979 | It makes no sense to ask of some individual thing what it is that makes it that individual [Strawson,P] |
| 14305 | In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap] |
| 13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
| 13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 18699 | Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory [Carnap, by Button] |
| 13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
| 13048 | Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon] |
| 9282 | I can only apply consciousness predicates to myself if I can apply them to others [Strawson,P] |
| 9263 | A person is an entity to which we can ascribe predicates of consciousness and corporeality [Strawson,P] |
| 12131 | All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody] |
| 8356 | The meaning of an expression or sentence is general directions for its use, to refer or to assert [Strawson,P] |
| 10430 | Reference is mainly a social phenomenon [Strawson,P, by Sainsbury] |
| 10448 | If an expression can refer to anything, it may still instrinsically refer, but relative to a context [Bach on Strawson,P] |
| 8355 | Expressions don't refer; people use expressions to refer [Strawson,P] |
| 8357 | If an utterance fails to refer then it is a pseudo-use, though a speaker may think they assert something [Strawson,P] |
| 9281 | The idea of a predicate matches a range of things to which it can be applied [Strawson,P] |
| 11968 | The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan] |
| 18285 | All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap] |