29 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] |
12452 | Our dislike of contradiction in logic is a matter of psychology, not mathematics [Brouwer] |
15941 | For intuitionists excluded middle is an outdated historical convention [Brouwer] |
18119 | Mathematics is a mental activity which does not use language [Brouwer, by Bostock] |
18247 | Brouwer saw reals as potential, not actual, and produced by a rule, or a choice [Brouwer, by Shapiro] |
12451 | Scientific laws largely rest on the results of counting and measuring [Brouwer] |
18118 | Brouwer regards the application of mathematics to the world as somehow 'wicked' [Brouwer, by Bostock] |
12454 | Intuitionists only accept denumerable sets [Brouwer] |
12453 | Neo-intuitionism abstracts from the reuniting of moments, to intuit bare two-oneness [Brouwer] |
8728 | Intuitionist mathematics deduces by introspective construction, and rejects unknown truths [Brouwer] |
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] |
10117 | Intuitonists in mathematics worried about unjustified assertion, as well as contradiction [Brouwer, by George/Velleman] |
20992 | Right and wrong concerns what other people cannot reasonably reject [Scanlon] |
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] |
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] |