51 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] |
| 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] |
| 6890 | Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner] |
| 16050 | The goodness of a picture supervenes on the picture; duplicates must be equally good [Hare] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 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] |
| 2705 | How can intuitionists distinguish universal convictions from local cultural ones? [Hare] |
| 2712 | You can't use intuitions to decide which intuitions you should cultivate [Hare] |
| 5452 | 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner] |
| 2706 | Emotivists mistakenly think all disagreements are about facts, and so there are no moral reasons [Hare] |
| 2709 | Prescriptivism sees 'ought' statements as imperatives which are universalisable [Hare] |
| 2704 | If morality is just a natural or intuitive description, that leads to relativism [Hare] |
| 2855 | In primary evaluative words like 'ought' prescription is constant but description can vary [Hare, by Hooker,B] |
| 22331 | Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock] |
| 22484 | Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot] |
| 4125 | Hare says I acquire an agglomeration of preferences by role-reversal, leading to utilitarianism [Hare, by Williams,B] |
| 4126 | If we have to want the preferences of the many, we have to abandon our own deeply-held views [Williams,B on Hare] |
| 4127 | If morality is to be built on identification with the preferences of others, I must agree with their errors [Williams,B on Hare] |
| 22483 | A judgement is presciptive if we expect it to be acted on [Hare] |
| 2703 | Descriptivism say ethical meaning is just truth-conditions; prescriptivism adds an evaluation [Hare] |
| 2707 | If there can be contradictory prescriptions, then reasoning must be involved [Hare] |
| 2708 | An 'ought' statement implies universal application [Hare] |
| 2711 | Prescriptivism implies a commitment, but descriptivism doesn't [Hare] |
| 4360 | By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright [Hare] |
| 2710 | Moral judgements must invoke some sort of principle [Hare] |
| 6449 | The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel] |