49 ideas
13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
23269 | Philosophy must start from clearly observed facts [Galen] |
13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |
9136 | The paradox of analysis says that any conceptual analysis must be either trivial or false [Sorensen] |
23248 | Early empiricists said reason was just a useless concept introduced by philosophers [Galen, by Frede,M] |
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] |
15163 | The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames] |
9119 | No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen] |
9135 | We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen] |
15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
15156 | The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames] |
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] |
9116 | Vague words have hidden boundaries [Sorensen] |
9132 | An offer of 'free coffee or juice' could slowly shift from exclusive 'or' to inclusive 'or' [Sorensen] |
13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
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] |
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] |
15152 | To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts [Soames] |
15153 | Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings [Soames] |
9134 | The negation of a meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful [Sorensen] |
13965 | Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames] |
13964 | Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames] |
13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
9133 | Propositions are what settle problems of ambiguity in sentences [Sorensen] |
15154 | We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames] |
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] |
9129 | I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen] |
23268 | We execute irredeemable people, to protect ourselves, as a deterrent, and ending a bad life [Galen] |
9122 | God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen] |