79 ideas
4697 | There has been a distinct 'Social Turn' in recent philosophy, like the earlier 'Linguistic Turn' [O'Grady] |
23269 | Philosophy must start from clearly observed facts [Galen] |
4731 | Good reasoning will avoid contradiction, enhance coherence, not ignore evidence, and maximise evidence [O'Grady] |
23248 | Early empiricists said reason was just a useless concept introduced by philosophers [Galen, by Frede,M] |
19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
4735 | Just as maps must simplify their subject matter, so thought has to be reductionist about reality [O'Grady] |
4701 | To say a relative truth is inexpressible in other frameworks is 'weak', while saying it is false is 'strong' [O'Grady] |
4703 | The epistemic theory of truth presents it as 'that which is licensed by our best theory of reality' [O'Grady] |
19033 | Deontic modalities are 'ought-to-be', for sentences, and 'ought-to-do' for predicates [Vetter] |
19032 | S5 is undesirable, as it prevents necessities from having contingent grounds [Vetter] |
19036 | The Barcan formula endorses either merely possible things, or makes the unactualised impossible [Vetter] |
4705 | Logical relativism appears if we allow more than one legitimate logical system [O'Grady] |
4700 | A third value for truth might be "indeterminate", or a point on a scale between 'true' and 'false' [O'Grady] |
4704 | Wittgenstein reduced Russell's five primitive logical symbols to a mere one [O'Grady] |
19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
4711 | Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties [O'Grady] |
4698 | What counts as a fact partly depends on the availability of human concepts to describe them [O'Grady] |
19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
19021 | I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter] |
19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |
19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |
19014 | How can spatiotemporal relations be understood in dispositional terms? [Vetter] |
4715 | We may say that objects have intrinsic identity conditions, but still allow multiple accounts of them [O'Grady] |
17953 | Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter] |
17952 | Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter] |
19030 | Why does origin matter more than development; why are some features of origin more important? [Vetter] |
19040 | We take origin to be necessary because we see possibilities as branches from actuality [Vetter] |
19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
17959 | Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter] |
17955 | Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter] |
17957 | Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter] |
19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
4719 | Maybe developments in logic and geometry have shown that the a priori may be relative [O'Grady] |
17958 | The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter] |
17956 | Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter] |
19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
4720 | Sense-data are only safe from scepticism if they are primitive and unconceptualised [O'Grady] |
4722 | Modern epistemology centres on debates about foundations, and about external justification [O'Grady] |
4724 | Internalists say the reasons for belief must be available to the subject, and externalists deny this [O'Grady] |
4723 | Coherence involves support from explanation and evidence, and also probability and confirmation [O'Grady] |
4709 | Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady] |
4725 | Contextualism says that knowledge is relative to its context; 'empty' depends on your interests [O'Grady] |
4732 | One may understand a realm of ideas, but be unable to judge their rationality or truth [O'Grady] |
19018 | Explanations by disposition are more stable and reliable than those be external circumstances [Vetter] |
19020 | Grounding is a kind of explanation, suited to metaphysics [Vetter] |
23266 | The spirit in the soul wants freedom, power and honour [Galen] |
6003 | Galen showed by experiment that the brain controls the body [Galen, by Hankinson] |
23219 | Stopping the heart doesn't terminate activity; pressing the brain does that [Galen, by Cobb] |
21799 | We just use the word 'faculty' when we don't know the psychological cause [Galen] |
23264 | Philosophers think faculties are in substances, and invent a faculty for every activity [Galen] |
23220 | The brain contains memory and reason, and is the source of sensation and decision [Galen] |
23265 | The rational part of the soul is the desire for truth, understanding and recollection [Galen] |
4710 | Verificationism was attacked by the deniers of the analytic-synthetic distinction, needed for 'facts' [O'Grady] |
4717 | If we abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction, scepticism about meaning may be inevitable [O'Grady] |
4706 | Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady] |
4734 | Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady] |
7453 | Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment [Galen, by Hacking] |
6030 | Each part of the soul has its virtue - pleasure for appetite, success for competition, and rectitude for reason [Galen] |
23268 | We execute irredeemable people, to protect ourselves, as a deterrent, and ending a bad life [Galen] |
19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |
19038 | Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter] |
17993 | Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain [Vetter] |
19026 | If time is symmetrical between past and future, why do they look so different? [Vetter] |
19041 | Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter] |
4727 | The chief problem for fideists is other fideists who hold contrary ideas [O'Grady] |