50 ideas
| 6253 | Reason is our power of finding out true propositions [Hutcheson] |
| 13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
| 13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
| 13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
| 13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
| 13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
| 13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
| 13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
| 14366 | An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens] |
| 13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
| 13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
| 13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
| 13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
| 13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
| 13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
| 13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
| 17093 | Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon] |
| 17492 | Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon] |
| 13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
| 13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
| 13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
| 16557 | Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Salmon, by Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
| 13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
| 13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
| 6248 | Reason is too slow and doubtful to guide all actions, which need external and moral senses [Hutcheson] |
| 6238 | We approve of actions by a superior moral sense [Hutcheson] |
| 6239 | We dislike a traitor, even if they give us great benefit [Hutcheson] |
| 6240 | The moral sense is not an innate idea, but an ability to approve or disapprove in a disinterested way [Hutcheson] |
| 6242 | We cannot choose our moral feelings, otherwise bribery could affect them [Hutcheson] |
| 6247 | Everyone feels uneasy when seeing others in pain, unless the others are evil [Hutcheson] |
| 6256 | Can't the moral sense make mistakes, as the other senses do? [Hutcheson] |
| 6244 | Human nature seems incapable of universal malice, except what results from self-love [Hutcheson] |
| 6243 | As death approaches, why do we still care about family, friends or country? [Hutcheson] |
| 6246 | My action is not made good by a good effect, if I did not foresee and intend it [Hutcheson] |
| 6252 | Happiness is a pleasant sensation, or continued state of such sensations [Hutcheson] |
| 20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
| 6241 | Contempt of danger is just madness if it is not in some worthy cause [Hutcheson] |
| 6257 | You can't form moral rules without an end, which needs feelings and a moral sense [Hutcheson] |
| 6245 | That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest number [Hutcheson] |
| 6251 | The loss of perfect rights causes misery, but the loss of imperfect rights reduces social good [Hutcheson] |
| 8412 | A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon] |
| 8413 | Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon] |
| 8411 | Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation [Salmon] |
| 4784 | Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos] |
| 8409 | Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science [Salmon] |
| 6254 | We are asked to follow God's ends because he is our benefactor, but why must we do that? [Hutcheson] |
| 6255 | Why may God not have a superior moral sense very similar to ours? [Hutcheson] |
| 6250 | We say God is good if we think everything he does aims at the happiness of his creatures [Hutcheson] |
| 6249 | If goodness is constituted by God's will, it is a tautology to say God's will is good [Hutcheson] |