58 ideas
19090 | If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty] |
2557 | Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty] |
2556 | Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty] |
18996 | A statement S is 'partly true' if it has some wholly true parts [Yablo] |
4726 | Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady] |
2549 | For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty] |
19006 | An 'enthymeme' is an argument with an indispensable unstated assumption [Yablo] |
8859 | The main modal logics disagree over three key formulae [Yablo] |
18999 | y is only a proper part of x if there is a z which 'makes up the difference' between them [Yablo] |
19001 | 'Pegasus doesn't exist' is false without Pegasus, yet the absence of Pegasus is its truthmaker [Yablo] |
9138 | An infinite series of sentences asserting falsehood produces the paradox without self-reference [Yablo, by Sorensen] |
8865 | If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo] |
19002 | A nominalist can assert statements about mathematical objects, as being partly true [Yablo] |
8863 | We must treat numbers as existing in order to express ourselves about the arrangement of planets [Yablo] |
10580 | Mathematics is both necessary and a priori because it really consists of logical truths [Yablo] |
8862 | Platonic objects are really created as existential metaphors [Yablo] |
10579 | Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo] |
10577 | Concrete objects have few essential properties, but properties of abstractions are mostly essential [Yablo] |
10578 | We are thought to know concreta a posteriori, and many abstracta a priori [Yablo] |
19489 | For me, fictions are internally true, without a significant internal or external truth-value [Yablo] |
19490 | Make-believe can help us to reason about facts and scientific procedures [Yablo] |
19491 | 'The clouds are angry' can only mean '...if one were attributing emotions to clouds' [Yablo] |
8864 | We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo] |
19494 | Fictionalism allows that simulated beliefs may be tracking real facts [Yablo] |
8858 | Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo] |
14381 | A statue is essentially the statue, but its lump is not essentially a statue, so statue isn't lump [Yablo, by Rocca] |
18998 | Parthood lacks the restriction of kind which most relations have [Yablo] |
19493 | Governing possible worlds theory is the fiction that if something is possible, it happens in a world [Yablo] |
19004 | Gettier says you don't know if you are confused about how it is true [Yablo] |
2548 | If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty] |
6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
2566 | You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty] |
19007 | A theory need not be true to be good; it should just be true about its physical aspects [Yablo] |
18993 | If sentences point to different evidence, they must have different subject-matter [Yablo] |
19003 | Most people say nonblack nonravens do confirm 'all ravens are black', but only a tiny bit [Yablo] |
2553 | The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty] |
2550 | Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty] |
2554 | Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty] |
10805 | A sentence should be recarved to reveal its content or implication relations [Yablo] |
2565 | Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty] |
18992 | Sentence-meaning is the truth-conditions - plus factors responsible for them [Yablo] |
2560 | Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty] |
2562 | A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty] |
18994 | The content of an assertion can be quite different from compositional content [Yablo] |
2559 | Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty] |
18997 | Truth-conditions as subject-matter has problems of relevance, short cut, and reversal [Yablo] |
19005 | Not-A is too strong to just erase an improper assertion, because it actually reverses A [Yablo] |
8861 | Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo] |
7404 | Nations are not obliged to help one-another, but are obliged not to harm one another [Grotius, by Tuck] |
2558 | Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty] |
7402 | Everyone has a right of self-preservation, and harming others is usually unjustifiable [Grotius, by Tuck] |
21938 | Democracy needs respect for individuality, but the 'community of friends' implies strict equality [Grotius] |
19845 | A person is free to renounce their state, as long as it is not a moment of crisis [Grotius, by Rousseau] |
22133 | Grotius and Pufendorf based natural law on real (rather than idealised) humanity [Grotius, by Ford,JD] |
7406 | A natural right of self-preservation is balanced by a natural law to avoid unnecessary harm [Grotius, by Tuck] |
7403 | Grotius ignored elaborate natural law theories, preferring a basic right of self-preservation [Grotius, by Tuck] |
23585 | It is permissible in a just cause to capture a place in neutral territory [Grotius] |
6892 | Moral principles have some validity without a God commanding obedience [Grotius, by Mautner] |