46 ideas
| 6887 | Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner] |
| 6881 | Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner] |
| 5439 | The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner] |
| 6675 | The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing [Pascal] |
| 9959 | 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner] |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| 9958 | Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner] |
| 9960 | A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner] |
| 9957 | Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner] |
| 6219 | The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner] |
| 6888 | Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner] |
| 6877 | Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner] |
| 6880 | Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner] |
| 6879 | 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner] |
| 6878 | A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner] |
| 6889 | Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner] |
| 10121 | Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal] |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| 12750 | The question is whether force is self-sufficient in bodies, and essential, or dependent on something [Lenfant] |
| 6882 | Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner] |
| 6886 | Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner] |
| 6885 | Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner] |
| 6884 | Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner] |
| 6883 | Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner] |
| 5449 | Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner] |
| 6898 | Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner] |
| 6452 | 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner] |
| 22011 | The first principles of truth are not rational, but are known by the heart [Pascal] |
| 4783 | Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG] |
| 4782 | 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG] |
| 6899 | The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner] |
| 6681 | We only want to know things so that we can talk about them [Pascal] |
| 6896 | Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner] |
| 6897 | Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner] |
| 6676 | Painting makes us admire things of which we do not admire the originals [Pascal] |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| 6680 | It is a funny sort of justice whose limits are marked by a river [Pascal] |
| 6677 | Imagination creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the supreme good [Pascal] |
| 6678 | We live for the past or future, and so are never happy in the present [Pascal] |
| 20732 | If man considers himself as lost and imprisoned in the universe, he will be terrified [Pascal] |
| 6682 | Majority opinion is visible and authoritative, although not very clever [Pascal] |
| 6679 | It is not good to be too free [Pascal] |
| 7455 | Pascal knows you can't force belief, but you can make it much more probable [Pascal, by Hacking] |
| 7457 | Pascal is right, but relies on the unsupported claim of a half as the chance of God's existence [Hacking on Pascal] |
| 7456 | The libertine would lose a life of enjoyable sin if he chose the cloisters [Hacking on Pascal] |
| 6684 | If you win the wager on God's existence you win everything, if you lose you lose nothing [Pascal] |