57 ideas
| 19695 | The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb] |
| 14273 | Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington] |
| 12205 | There are two families of modal notions, metaphysical and epistemic, of equal strength [Edgington] |
| 12207 | Metaphysical possibility is discovered empirically, and is contrained by nature [Edgington] |
| 12206 | Broadly logical necessity (i.e. not necessarily formal logical necessity) is an epistemic notion [Edgington] |
| 12185 | Logical necessity is epistemic necessity, which is the old notion of a priori [Edgington, by McFetridge] |
| 12208 | An argument is only valid if it is epistemically (a priori) necessary [Edgington] |
| 13857 | Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington] |
| 14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington] |
| 14284 | Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington] |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| 13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
| 14270 | Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington] |
| 14269 | Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington] |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| 14275 | Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington] |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| 14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington] |
| 14276 | The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington] |
| 14290 | Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington] |
| 13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington] |
| 13859 | X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington] |
| 14271 | Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington] |
| 14272 | I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington] |
| 13854 | Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington] |
| 14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
| 14278 | Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington] |
| 14287 | Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington] |
| 17405 | If a theory can be fudged, so can observations [Scerri] |
| 17397 | The periodic system is the big counterexample to Kuhn's theory of revolutionary science [Scerri] |
| 17393 | Scientists eventually seek underlying explanations for every pattern [Scerri] |
| 17403 | The periodic table suggests accommodation to facts rates above prediction [Scerri] |
| 17394 | Natural kinds are what are differentiated by nature, and not just by us [Scerri] |
| 17421 | If elements are natural kinds, might the groups of the periodic table also be natural kinds? [Scerri] |
| 17396 | The colour of gold is best explained by relativistic effects due to fast-moving inner-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17411 | If all elements are multiples of one (of hydrogen), that suggests once again that matter is unified [Scerri] |
| 17420 | The stability of nuclei can be estimated through their binding energy [Scerri] |
| 17391 | Periodicity and bonding are the two big ideas in chemistry [Scerri] |
| 17404 | Chemistry does not work from general principles, but by careful induction from large amounts of data [Scerri] |
| 17407 | The electron is the main source of chemical properties [Scerri] |
| 17392 | How can poisonous elements survive in the nutritious compound they compose? [Scerri] |
| 17409 | Does radioactivity show that only physics can explain chemistry? [Scerri] |
| 17415 | A big chemistry idea is that covalent bonds are shared electrons, not transfer of electrons [Scerri] |
| 17418 | It is now thought that all the elements have literally evolved from hydrogen [Scerri] |
| 17398 | 19th C views said elements survived abstractly in compounds, but also as 'material ingredients' [Scerri] |
| 17395 | Elements were ordered by equivalent weight; later by atomic weight; finally by atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17406 | Moseley, using X-rays, showed that atomic number ordered better than atomic weight [Scerri] |
| 17408 | Some suggested basing the new periodic table on isotopes, not elements [Scerri] |
| 17414 | Pauli explained the electron shells, but not the lengths of the periods in the table [Scerri] |
| 17422 | The best classification needs the deepest and most general principles of the atoms [Scerri] |
| 17412 | Elements are placed in the table by the number of positive charges - the atomic number [Scerri] |
| 17413 | Elements in the table are grouped by having the same number of outer-shell electrons [Scerri] |
| 17410 | Moseley showed the elements progress in units, and thereby clearly identified the gaps [Scerri] |
| 17419 | Since 99.96% of the universe is hydrogen and helium, the periodic table hardly matters [Scerri] |
| 17416 | Orthodoxy says the periodic table is explained by quantum mechanics [Scerri] |
| 17417 | To explain the table, quantum mechanics still needs to explain order of shell filling [Scerri] |