31 ideas
| 14611 | Metaphysics should avoid talk of past, present or future [Smart] |
| 17070 | Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart] |
| 17072 | We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart] |
| 10147 | The Axiom of Choice is consistent with the other axioms of set theory [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10148 | Axiom of Choice: a set exists which chooses just one element each of any set of sets [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10149 | Platonist will accept the Axiom of Choice, but others want criteria of selection or definition [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10150 | The Trichotomy Principle is equivalent to the Axiom of Choice [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10146 | Cantor's theories needed the Axiom of Choice, but it has led to great controversy [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10158 | A structure is a 'model' when the axioms are true. So which of the structures are models? [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10162 | Tarski and Vaught established the equivalence relations between first-order structures [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10160 | Löwenheim-Skolem says if the sentences are countable, so is the model [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10159 | Löwenheim-Skolem Theorem, and Gödel's completeness of first-order logic, the earliest model theory [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10161 | If a sentence holds in every model of a theory, then it is logically derivable from the theory [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10156 | 'Recursion theory' concerns what can be solved by computing machines [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10155 | Both Principia Mathematica and Peano Arithmetic are undecidable [Feferman/Feferman] |
| 17073 | I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart] |
| 17077 | The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart] |
| 17078 | Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart] |
| 17061 | Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart] |
| 17074 | Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart] |
| 17076 | Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart] |
| 17071 | An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart] |
| 17062 | If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart] |
| 17075 | Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart] |
| 22405 | Negative utilitarianism implies that the world should be destroyed, to avoid future misery [Smart] |
| 22404 | Any group interested in ethics must surely have a sentiment of generalised benevolence [Smart] |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| 14613 | Special relativity won't determine a preferred frame, but we can pick one externally [Smart] |
| 17063 | Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart] |
| 14615 | If time flows, then 'how fast does it flow?' is a tricky question [Smart] |
| 14614 | The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically [Smart] |