61 ideas
9136 | The paradox of analysis says that any conceptual analysis must be either trivial or false [Sorensen] |
9131 | Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction [Sorensen] |
9139 | If nothing exists, no truthmakers could make 'Nothing exists' true [Sorensen] |
9140 | Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen] |
9065 | S5 collapses iterated modalities (◊□P→□P, and ◊◊P→◊P) [Keefe/Smith] |
9119 | No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen] |
9135 | We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen] |
9125 | Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen] |
9137 | Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen] |
9064 | Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith] |
9044 | If someone is borderline tall, no further information is likely to resolve the question [Keefe/Smith] |
9048 | The simplest approach, that vagueness is just ignorance, retains classical logic and semantics [Keefe/Smith] |
9055 | The epistemic view of vagueness must explain why we don't know the predicate boundary [Keefe/Smith] |
9116 | Vague words have hidden boundaries [Sorensen] |
9049 | Supervaluationism keeps true-or-false where precision can be produced, but not otherwise [Keefe/Smith] |
9056 | Vague statements lack truth value if attempts to make them precise fail [Keefe/Smith] |
9058 | Some of the principles of classical logic still fail with supervaluationism [Keefe/Smith] |
9059 | The semantics of supervaluation (e.g. disjunction and quantification) is not classical [Keefe/Smith] |
9060 | Supervaluation misunderstands vagueness, treating it as a failure to make things precise [Keefe/Smith] |
9050 | A third truth-value at borderlines might be 'indeterminate', or a value somewhere between 0 and 1 [Keefe/Smith] |
9061 | People can't be placed in a precise order according to how 'nice' they are [Keefe/Smith] |
9062 | If truth-values for vagueness range from 0 to 1, there must be someone who is 'completely tall' [Keefe/Smith] |
9063 | How do we decide if my coat is red to degree 0.322 or 0.321? [Keefe/Smith] |
16661 | There are two sorts of category - referring to things, and to circumstances of things [Boethius] |
15035 | If universals are not separate, we can isolate them by abstraction [Boethius, by Panaccio] |
14665 | We can call the quality of Plato 'Platonity', and say it is a quality which only he possesses [Boethius] |
9045 | Vague predicates involve uncertain properties, uncertain objects, and paradoxes of gradual change [Keefe/Smith] |
9047 | Many vague predicates are multi-dimensional; 'big' involves height and volume; heaps include arrangement [Keefe/Smith] |
9053 | If there is a precise borderline area, that is not a case of vagueness [Keefe/Smith] |
9132 | An offer of 'free coffee or juice' could slowly shift from exclusive 'or' to inclusive 'or' [Sorensen] |
23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
9128 | It is propositional attitudes which can be a priori, not the propositions themselves [Sorensen] |
9130 | Attributing apriority to a proposition is attributing a cognitive ability to someone [Sorensen] |
9118 | The colour bands of the spectrum arise from our biology; they do not exist in the physics [Sorensen] |
9124 | We are unable to perceive a nose (on the back of a mask) as concave [Sorensen] |
9126 | Bayesians build near-certainty from lots of reasonably probable beliefs [Sorensen] |
9121 | Illusions are not a reason for skepticism, but a source of interesting scientific information [Sorensen] |
5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
9134 | The negation of a meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful [Sorensen] |
9133 | Propositions are what settle problems of ambiguity in sentences [Sorensen] |
5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
9129 | I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen] |
9122 | God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen] |
16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |