40 ideas
17926 | Rejecting double negation elimination undermines reductio proofs [Colyvan] |
17925 | Showing a disproof is impossible is not a proof, so don't eliminate double negation [Colyvan] |
17924 | Excluded middle says P or not-P; bivalence says P is either true or false [Colyvan] |
17929 | Löwenheim proved his result for a first-order sentence, and Skolem generalised it [Colyvan] |
17930 | Axioms are 'categorical' if all of their models are isomorphic [Colyvan] |
17928 | Ordinal numbers represent order relations [Colyvan] |
17923 | Intuitionists only accept a few safe infinities [Colyvan] |
17941 | Infinitesimals were sometimes zero, and sometimes close to zero [Colyvan] |
17922 | Reducing real numbers to rationals suggested arithmetic as the foundation of maths [Colyvan] |
17936 | Transfinite induction moves from all cases, up to the limit ordinal [Colyvan] |
17940 | Most mathematical proofs are using set theory, but without saying so [Colyvan] |
17931 | Structuralism say only 'up to isomorphism' matters because that is all there is to it [Colyvan] |
17932 | If 'in re' structures relies on the world, does the world contain rich enough structures? [Colyvan] |
11897 | A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P] |
11898 | Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P] |
11883 | A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P] |
11889 | Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P] |
11877 | An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P] |
11882 | No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P] |
11886 | There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P] |
11909 | Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P] |
11899 | Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P] |
11906 | The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P] |
11894 | Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P] |
11887 | Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P] |
11890 | De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P] |
11892 | Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P] |
11893 | Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P] |
11884 | The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P] |
17943 | Probability supports Bayesianism better as degrees of belief than as ratios of frequencies [Colyvan] |
17939 | Mathematics can reveal structural similarities in diverse systems [Colyvan] |
17938 | Mathematics can show why some surprising events have to occur [Colyvan] |
11905 | Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P] |
17933 | Reductio proofs do not seem to be very explanatory [Colyvan] |
17935 | If inductive proofs hold because of the structure of natural numbers, they may explain theorems [Colyvan] |
17942 | Can a proof that no one understands (of the four-colour theorem) really be a proof? [Colyvan] |
17934 | Proof by cases (by 'exhaustion') is said to be unexplanatory [Colyvan] |
17937 | Mathematical generalisation is by extending a system, or by abstracting away from it [Colyvan] |
11907 | Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P] |
1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |