74 ideas
| 17651 | Without words or other symbols, we have no world [Goodman] |
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| 17652 | Truth is irrelevant if no statements are involved [Goodman] |
| 15510 | Classes are a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities [Goodman] |
| 9920 | Two objects can apparently make up quite distinct arrangements in sets [Goodman, by Burgess/Rosen] |
| 6548 | Physicalism requires the naturalisation or rejection of set theory [Lycan] |
| 10657 | The counties of Utah, and the state, and its acres, are in no way different [Goodman] |
| 12394 | If the result is bad, we change the rule; if we like the rule, we reject the result [Goodman] |
| 7755 | Singular terms refer, using proper names, definite descriptions, singular personal pronouns, demonstratives, etc. [Lycan] |
| 6531 | Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan] |
| 6532 | Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan] |
| 6534 | One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan] |
| 5500 | Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan] |
| 17656 | Being primitive or prior always depends on a constructional system [Goodman] |
| 17661 | We don't recognise patterns - we invent them [Goodman] |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| 6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
| 17654 | A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it [Goodman] |
| 14292 | Dispositions seem more ethereal than behaviour; a non-occult account of them would be nice [Goodman] |
| 7956 | If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
| 7957 | Without respects of resemblance, we would collect blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock together [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
| 7952 | If we apply the same word to different things, it is only because we are willing to do so [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| 17653 | Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman] |
| 5494 | 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan] |
| 12191 | Counterfactuals are true if logical or natural laws imply the consequence [Goodman, by McFetridge] |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| 6549 | I think greenness is a complex microphysical property of green objects [Lycan] |
| 17660 | Discovery is often just finding a fit, like a jigsaw puzzle [Goodman] |
| 17658 | Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman] |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| 18749 | Goodman argued that the confirmation relation can never be formalised [Goodman, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| 17646 | Goodman showed that every sound inductive argument has an unsound one of the same form [Goodman, by Putnam] |
| 17655 | Grue and green won't be in the same world, as that would block induction entirely [Goodman] |
| 6543 | Intentionality comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 6537 | Teleological views allow for false intentional content, unlike causal and nomological theories [Lycan] |
| 6546 | Pain is composed of urges, desires, impulses etc, at different levels of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6547 | The right 'level' for qualia is uncertain, though top (behaviourism) and bottom (particles) are false [Lycan] |
| 6527 | If energy in the brain disappears into thin air, this breaches physical conservation laws [Lycan] |
| 6528 | In lower animals, psychology is continuous with chemistry, and humans are continuous with animals [Lycan] |
| 6554 | Two behaviourists meet. The first says,"You're fine; how am I?" [Lycan] |
| 6545 | If functionalism focuses on folk psychology, it ignores lower levels of function [Lycan] |
| 6541 | Functionalism must not be too abstract to allow inverted spectrum, or so structural that it becomes chauvinistic [Lycan] |
| 5496 | Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan] |
| 6539 | The distinction between software and hardware is not clear in computing [Lycan] |
| 6533 | Mental types are a subclass of teleological types at a high level of functional abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6535 | Teleological characterisations shade off smoothly into brutely physical ones [Lycan] |
| 5499 | A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan] |
| 6544 | Identity theory is functionalism, but located at the lowest level of abstraction [Lycan] |
| 6530 | We reduce the mind through homuncular groups, described abstractly by purpose [Lycan] |
| 6536 | Teleological functionalism helps us to understand psycho-biological laws [Lycan] |
| 6542 | A Martian may exhibit human-like behaviour while having very different sensations [Lycan] |
| 7768 | The truth conditions theory sees meaning as representation [Lycan] |
| 7766 | Meaning must be known before we can consider verification [Lycan] |
| 7764 | Could I successfully use an expression, without actually understanding it? [Lycan] |
| 7763 | It is hard to state a rule of use for a proper name [Lycan] |
| 7770 | Truth conditions will come out the same for sentences with 'renate' or 'cordate' [Lycan] |
| 7773 | A sentence's truth conditions is the set of possible worlds in which the sentence is true [Lycan] |
| 7774 | Possible worlds explain aspects of meaning neatly - entailment, for example, is the subset relation [Lycan] |
| 20440 | Art is a referential activity, hence indefinable, but it has a set of symptoms [Goodman] |
| 20439 | Artistic symbols are judged by the fruitfulness of their classifications [Goodman, by Giovannelli] |
| 8113 | Art is like understanding a natural language, and needs a grasp of a symbol system [Goodman, by Gardner] |
| 20438 | A performance is only an instance of a work if there is not a single error [Goodman] |
| 20437 | A copy only becomes an 'instance' of an artwork if there is a system of notation [Goodman] |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| 17649 | If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman] |
| 6538 | We need a notion of teleology that comes in degrees [Lycan] |
| 5501 | People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan] |
| 4794 | We don't use laws to make predictions, we call things laws if we make predictions with them [Goodman] |
| 6551 | 'Physical' means either figuring in physics descriptions, or just located in space-time [Lycan] |