45 ideas
3123 | Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints [Segal] |
3125 | Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal] |
8502 | Realism doesn't explain 'a is F' any further by saying it is 'a has F-ness' [Devitt] |
8503 | The particular/universal distinction is unhelpful clutter; we should accept 'a is F' as basic [Devitt] |
8501 | Quineans take predication about objects as basic, not reference to properties they may have [Devitt] |
17368 | Essentialism concerns the nature of a group, not its category [Devitt] |
17370 | Things that gradually change, like species, can still have essences [Devitt] |
3105 | Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal] |
3106 | If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal] |
9354 | Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt] |
19565 | How could the mind have a link to the necessary character of reality? [Devitt] |
9353 | We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt] |
9356 | The idea of the a priori is so obscure that it won't explain anything [Devitt] |
19564 | Some knowledge must be empirical; naturalism implies that all knowledge is like that [Devitt] |
3113 | The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth [Segal] |
3112 | Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal] |
3108 | If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ [Segal] |
3110 | Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible [Segal] |
3124 | Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds [Segal] |
3117 | Concepts can survive a big change in extension [Segal] |
3104 | Must we relate to some diamonds to understand them? [Segal] |
3103 | Maybe content involves relations to a language community [Segal] |
3111 | Externalism can't explain concepts that have no reference [Segal] |
3109 | If content is external, so are beliefs and desires [Segal] |
3116 | Maybe experts fix content, not ordinary users [Segal] |
3121 | If content is narrow, my perfect twin shares my concepts [Segal] |
3118 | If thoughts ARE causal, we can't explain how they cause things [Segal] |
3119 | Even 'mass' cannot be defined in causal terms [Segal] |
5901 | Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it? [Ross on Bentham] |
5934 | Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham] |
5271 | Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham] |
3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
3554 | Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that? [Annas on Bentham] |
3781 | The value of pleasures and pains is their force [Bentham] |
20977 | Natural rights are nonsense, and unspecified natural rights is nonsense on stilts [Bentham] |
3778 | The community's interest is a sum of individual interests [Bentham] |
21003 | Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary [Bentham] |
20280 | Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer? [Bentham] |
3779 | Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham] |
17371 | Some kinds are very explanatory, but others less so, and some not at all [Devitt] |
17369 | We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt] |
17367 | Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG] |
17372 | The higher categories are not natural kinds, so the Linnaean hierarchy should be given up [Devitt] |
17373 | Species pluralism says there are several good accounts of what a species is [Devitt] |
3780 | We must judge a thing morally to know if it conforms to God's will [Bentham] |