345 ideas
| 13860 | We can only learn from philosophers of the past if we accept the risk of major misrepresentation [Wright,C] |
| 12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
| 16395 | Kripke separated semantics from metaphysics, rather than linking them, making the latter independent [Kripke, by Stalnaker] |
| 12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
| 17034 | Analyses of concepts using entirely different terms are very inclined to fail [Kripke] |
| 2474 | It seems likely that analysis of concepts is impossible, but justification can survive without it [Fodor] |
| 2481 | Despite all the efforts of philosophers, nothing can ever be reduced to anything [Fodor] |
| 2505 | Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor] |
| 2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
| 13883 | The best way to understand a philosophical idea is to defend it [Wright,C] |
| 4955 | Some definitions aim to fix a reference rather than give a meaning [Kripke] |
| 10142 | The attempt to define numbers by contextual definition has been revived [Wright,C, by Fine,K] |
| 12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
| 2470 | Transcendental arguments move from knowing Q to knowing P because it depends on Q [Fodor] |
| 2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
| 15327 | Kripke's semantic theory has actually inspired promising axiomatic theories [Kripke, by Horsten] |
| 15343 | Kripke offers a semantic theory of truth (involving models) [Kripke, by Horsten] |
| 14967 | Certain three-valued languages can contain their own truth predicates [Kripke, by Gupta] |
| 14966 | The Tarskian move to a metalanguage may not be essential for truth theories [Kripke, by Gupta] |
| 16328 | Kripke classified fixed points, and illuminated their use for clarifications [Kripke, by Halbach] |
| 10163 | Propositional modal logic has been proved to be complete [Kripke, by Feferman/Feferman] |
| 10559 | Kripke's modal semantics presupposes certain facts about possible worlds [Kripke, by Zalta] |
| 16985 | Possible worlds allowed the application of set-theoretic models to modal logic [Kripke] |
| 10760 | With possible worlds, S4 and S5 are sound and complete, but S1-S3 are not even sound [Kripke, by Rossberg] |
| 16189 | The variable domain approach to quantified modal logic invalidates the Barcan Formula [Kripke, by Simchen] |
| 15132 | The Barcan formulas fail in models with varying domains [Kripke, by Williamson] |
| 2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
| 12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
| 10437 | Names are rigid, making them unlike definite descriptions [Kripke, by Sainsbury] |
| 4949 | Names are rigid designators, which designate the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| 3005 | 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor] |
| 12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
| 12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
| 4951 | A bundle of qualities is a collection of abstractions, so it can't be a particular [Kripke] |
| 17031 | A name can still refer even if it satisfies none of its well-known descriptions [Kripke] |
| 9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
| 8957 | Some references, such as 'Neptune', have to be fixed by description rather than baptism [Kripke, by Szabó] |
| 10428 | Proper names must have referents, because they are not descriptive [Kripke, by Sainsbury] |
| 4959 | A name's reference is not fixed by any marks or properties of the referent [Kripke] |
| 16982 | A man has two names if the historical chains are different - even if they are the same! [Kripke] |
| 9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
| 9868 | An expression refers if it is a singular term in some true sentences [Wright,C, by Dummett] |
| 10792 | The substitutional quantifier is not in competition with the standard interpretation [Kripke, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
| 13861 | Number theory aims at the essence of natural numbers, giving their nature, and the epistemology [Wright,C] |
| 13892 | One could grasp numbers, and name sizes with them, without grasping ordering [Wright,C] |
| 13867 | Instances of a non-sortal concept can only be counted relative to a sortal concept [Wright,C] |
| 17441 | Wright thinks Hume's Principle is more fundamental to cardinals than the Peano Axioms are [Wright,C, by Heck] |
| 13862 | There are five Peano axioms, which can be expressed informally [Wright,C] |
| 17853 | Number truths are said to be the consequence of PA - but it needs semantic consequence [Wright,C] |
| 17854 | What facts underpin the truths of the Peano axioms? [Wright,C] |
| 13894 | Sameness of number is fundamental, not counting, despite children learning that first [Wright,C] |
| 10140 | We derive Hume's Law from Law V, then discard the latter in deriving arithmetic [Wright,C, by Fine,K] |
| 8692 | Frege has a good system if his 'number principle' replaces his basic law V [Wright,C, by Friend] |
| 17440 | Wright says Hume's Principle is analytic of cardinal numbers, like a definition [Wright,C, by Heck] |
| 13893 | It is 1-1 correlation of concepts, and not progression, which distinguishes natural number [Wright,C] |
| 13888 | If numbers are extensions, Frege must first solve the Caesar problem for extensions [Wright,C] |
| 13869 | Number platonism says that natural number is a sortal concept [Wright,C] |
| 13870 | We can't use empiricism to dismiss numbers, if numbers are our main evidence against empiricism [Wright,C] |
| 13873 | Treating numbers adjectivally is treating them as quantifiers [Wright,C] |
| 7804 | Wright has revived Frege's discredited logicism [Wright,C, by Benardete,JA] |
| 13899 | The Peano Axioms, and infinity of cardinal numbers, are logical consequences of how we explain cardinals [Wright,C] |
| 13896 | The aim is to follow Frege's strategy to derive the Peano Axioms, but without invoking classes [Wright,C] |
| 13863 | Logicism seemed to fail by Russell's paradox, Gödel's theorems, and non-logical axioms [Wright,C] |
| 13895 | The standard objections are Russell's Paradox, non-logical axioms, and Gödel's theorems [Wright,C] |
| 13884 | The idea that 'exist' has multiple senses is not coherent [Wright,C] |
| 12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
| 14896 | Kripke's metaphysics (essences, kinds, rigidity) blocks the slide into sociology [Kripke, by Ladyman/Ross] |
| 13877 | Singular terms in true sentences must refer to objects; there is no further question about their existence [Wright,C] |
| 2469 | The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor] |
| 7014 | A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor] |
| 12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
| 2475 | Don't define something by a good instance of it; a good example is a special case of the ordinary example [Fodor] |
| 9878 | Contextually defined abstract terms genuinely refer to objects [Wright,C, by Dummett] |
| 17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
| 17647 | Kripke individuates objects by essential modal properties (and presupposes essentialism) [Kripke, by Putnam] |
| 13868 | Sortal concepts cannot require that things don't survive their loss, because of phase sortals [Wright,C] |
| 16995 | Given that a table is made of molecules, could it not be molecular and still be this table? [Kripke] |
| 17047 | If we imagine this table made of ice or different wood, we are imagining a different table [Kripke] |
| 11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
| 5450 | For Kripke, essence is origin; for Putnam, essence is properties; for Wiggins, essence is membership of a kind [Kripke, by Mautner] |
| 17055 | Atomic number 79 is part of the nature of the gold we know [Kripke] |
| 16997 | An essential property is true of an object in any case where it would have existed [Kripke] |
| 17045 | De re modality is an object having essential properties [Kripke] |
| 17030 | Important properties of an object need not be essential to it [Kripke] |
| 16955 | Kripke says internal structure fixes species; I say it is genetic affinity and a common descent [Kripke, by Dummett] |
| 16996 | Given that Nixon is indeed a human being, that he might not have been does not concern knowledge [Kripke] |
| 13971 | Kripke claims that some properties, only knowable posteriori, are known a priori to be essential [Kripke, by Soames] |
| 12100 | An essence is the necessary properties, derived from an intuitive identity, in origin, type and material [Kripke, by Witt] |
| 16991 | No one seems to know the identity conditions for a material object (or for people) over time [Kripke] |
| 11867 | If we lose track of origin, how do we show we are maintaining a reference? [Kripke, by Wiggins] |
| 12018 | Kripke argues, of the Queen, that parents of an organism are essentially so [Kripke, by Forbes,G] |
| 17046 | Could the actual Queen have been born of different parents? [Kripke] |
| 8274 | Socrates can't have a necessary origin, because he might have had no 'origin' [Lowe on Kripke] |
| 16981 | With the necessity of self-identity plus Leibniz's Law, identity has to be an 'internal' relation [Kripke] |
| 17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
| 17038 | If Hesperus and Phosophorus are the same, they can't possibly be different [Kripke] |
| 17036 | Identity statements can be contingent if they rely on descriptions [Kripke] |
| 4942 | The indiscernibility of identicals is as self-evident as the law of contradiction [Kripke] |
| 16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
| 11880 | Kripke says his necessary a posteriori examples are known a priori to be necessary [Kripke, by Mackie,P] |
| 12189 | Logical necessity involves a decision about usage, and is non-realist and non-cognitive [Wright,C, by McFetridge] |
| 4797 | Instead of being regularities, maybe natural laws are the weak a posteriori necessities of Kripke [Kripke, by Psillos] |
| 17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
| 4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
| 17037 | Physical necessity may be necessity in the highest degree [Kripke] |
| 17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
| 12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
| 16984 | I don't think possible worlds reductively reveal the natures of modal operators etc. [Kripke] |
| 4728 | Kripke separates necessary and a priori, proposing necessary a posteriori and contingent a priori examples [Kripke, by O'Grady] |
| 16990 | A priori = Necessary because we imagine all worlds, and we know without looking at actuality? [Kripke] |
| 9386 | The meter is defined necessarily, but the stick being one meter long is contingent a priori [Kripke] |
| 9385 | The very act of designating of an object with properties gives knowledge of a contingent truth [Kripke] |
| 2408 | Kripke has demonstrated that some necessary truths are only knowable a posteriori [Kripke, by Chalmers] |
| 4960 | "'Hesperus' is 'Phosphorus'" is necessarily true, if it is true, but not known a priori [Kripke] |
| 4966 | Theoretical identities are between rigid designators, and so are necessary a posteriori [Kripke] |
| 9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
| 13967 | Kripke's essentialist necessary a posteriori opened the gap between conceivable and really possible [Soames on Kripke] |
| 13970 | Kripke gets to the necessary a posteriori by only allowing conceivability when combined with actuality [Kripke, by Soames] |
| 4943 | Instead of talking about possible worlds, we can always say "It is possible that.." [Kripke] |
| 4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
| 16992 | Possible worlds aren't puzzling places to learn about, but places we ourselves describe [Kripke] |
| 16983 | Probability with dice uses possible worlds, abstractions which fictionally simplify things [Kripke] |
| 16993 | If we discuss what might have happened to Nixon, we stipulate that it is about Nixon [Kripke] |
| 16998 | Transworld identification is unproblematic, because we stipulate that we rigidly refer to something [Kripke] |
| 17001 | A table in some possible world should not even be identified by its essential properties [Kripke] |
| 4952 | Identification across possible worlds does not need properties, even essential ones [Kripke] |
| 7761 | Test for rigidity by inserting into the sentence 'N might not have been N' [Kripke, by Lycan] |
| 7693 | Kripke avoids difficulties of transworld identity by saying it is a decision, not a discovery [Kripke, by Jacquette] |
| 9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| 17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
| 5821 | Saying that natural kinds are 'rigid designators' is the same as saying they are 'indexical' [Kripke, by Putnam] |
| 14068 | If Kripke names must still denote a thing in a non-actual situation, the statue isn't its clay [Gibbard on Kripke] |
| 10436 | A rigid expression may refer at a world to an object not existing in that world [Kripke, by Sainsbury] |
| 4953 | We do not begin with possible worlds and place objects in them; we begin with objects in the real world [Kripke] |
| 4961 | It is a necessary truth that Elizabeth II was the child of two particular parents [Kripke] |
| 9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
| 9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
| 9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
| 16986 | That there might have been unicorns is false; we don't know the circumstances for unicorns [Kripke] |
| 12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
| 2502 | How do you count beliefs? [Fodor] |
| 12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
| 2501 | Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor] |
| 8259 | Kripke has breathed new life into the a priori/a posteriori distinction [Kripke, by Lowe] |
| 16989 | Rather than 'a priori truth', it is best to stick to whether some person knows it on a priori evidence [Kripke] |
| 4947 | A priori truths can be known independently of experience - but they don't have to be [Kripke] |
| 3009 | Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor] |
| 3008 | Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor] |
| 2990 | Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor] |
| 17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
| 13975 | Kripke was more successful in illuminating necessity than a priority (and their relations to analyticity) [Kripke, by Soames] |
| 17048 | Analytic judgements are a priori, even when their content is empirical [Kripke] |
| 2465 | Maybe explaining the mechanics of perception will explain the concepts involved [Fodor] |
| 2504 | Rationalism can be based on an evolved computational brain with innate structure [Fodor] |
| 2493 | According to empiricists abstraction is the fundamental mental process [Fodor] |
| 3978 | Associations are held to connect Ideas together in the way the world is connected together [Fodor] |
| 12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
| 12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
| 2494 | Rationalists say there is more to a concept than the experience that prompts it [Fodor] |
| 4948 | Intuition is the strongest possible evidence one can have about anything [Kripke] |
| 2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
| 2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor] |
| 2454 | We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor] |
| 2455 | Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor] |
| 2461 | An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor] |
| 4958 | Identities like 'heat is molecule motion' are necessary (in the highest degree), not contingent [Kripke] |
| 2458 | Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor] |
| 4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
| 2508 | The function of a mind is obvious [Fodor] |
| 2503 | Empirical approaches see mind connections as mirrors/maps of reality [Fodor] |
| 12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
| 2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
| 2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
| 2453 | We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor] |
| 15473 | How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB] |
| 2485 | Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor] |
| 2981 | Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor] |
| 7326 | Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor] |
| 15494 | We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor] |
| 3976 | Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor] |
| 3980 | Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor] |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
| 2506 | If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor] |
| 2445 | Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor] |
| 2446 | Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor] |
| 2599 | Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor] |
| 4967 | It seems logically possible to have the pain brain state without the actual pain [Kripke] |
| 9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
| 3001 | Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor] |
| 2467 | Functionalists see pains as properties involving relations and causation [Fodor] |
| 2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
| 12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
| 3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |
| 5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
| 2597 | Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor] |
| 2489 | Why bother with neurons? You don't explain bird flight by examining feathers [Fodor] |
| 2985 | Are beliefs brains states, but picked out at a "higher level"? [Lyons on Fodor] |
| 2995 | Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor] |
| 7430 | Kripke assumes that mind-brain identity designates rigidly, which it doesn't [Armstrong on Kripke] |
| 2464 | Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor] |
| 2468 | Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor] |
| 2447 | Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor] |
| 2490 | Modern connectionism is just Hume's theory of the 'association' of 'ideas' [Fodor] |
| 12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
| 2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
| 3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
| 2598 | Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor] |
| 3981 | Most psychological properties seem to be multiply realisable [Fodor] |
| 7867 | If consciousness could separate from brain, then it cannot be identical with brain [Kripke, by Papineau] |
| 3228 | Kripke says pain is necessarily pain, but a brain state isn't necessarily painful [Kripke, by Rey] |
| 5832 | Identity must be necessary, but pain isn't necessarily a brain state, so they aren't identical [Kripke, by Schwartz,SP] |
| 4968 | Identity theorists seem committed to no-brain-event-no-pain, and vice versa, which seems wrong [Kripke] |
| 9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
| 2992 | We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor] |
| 2476 | The goal of thought is to understand the world, not instantly sort it into conceptual categories [Fodor] |
| 12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
| 12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
| 2440 | Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor] |
| 2988 | Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor] |
| 3975 | Folk psychology explains behaviour by reference to intentional states like belief and desire [Fodor] |
| 2450 | Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor] |
| 19269 | 'Quus' means the same as 'plus' if the ingredients are less than 57; otherwise it just produces 5 [Kripke] |
| 19271 | No rule can be fully explained [Kripke] |
| 2507 | Rationality rises above modules [Fodor] |
| 22186 | Mental modules are specialised, automatic, and isolated [Fodor, by Okasha] |
| 2491 | Modules have encapsulation, inaccessibility, private concepts, innateness [Fodor] |
| 2497 | Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor] |
| 2495 | Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [Fodor] |
| 2500 | Babies talk in consistent patterns [Fodor] |
| 2498 | Modules make the world manageable [Fodor] |
| 2499 | Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor] |
| 2496 | Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor] |
| 2509 | Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor] |
| 12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
| 2480 | Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor] |
| 3010 | Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor] |
| 8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin] |
| 2483 | Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor] |
| 2604 | We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor] |
| 2487 | Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor] |
| 12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
| 16383 | Puzzled Pierre has two mental files about the same object [Recanati on Kripke] |
| 12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
| 3135 | Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey] |
| 12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
| 2983 | Maybe narrow content is physical, broad content less so [Lyons on Fodor] |
| 12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
| 12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
| 2437 | XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor] |
| 3982 | How could the extrinsic properties of thoughts supervene on their intrinsic properties? [Fodor] |
| 2441 | Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor] |
| 3114 | Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor] |
| 2999 | Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor] |
| 2486 | Content can't be causal role, because causal role is decided by content [Fodor] |
| 3012 | Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor] |
| 2452 | Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor] |
| 2432 | Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor] |
| 13865 | 'Sortal' concepts show kinds, use indefinite articles, and require grasping identities [Wright,C] |
| 13866 | A concept is only a sortal if it gives genuine identity [Wright,C] |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| 11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence] |
| 6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
| 2492 | Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor] |
| 12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
| 12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
| 12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
| 12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
| 2438 | In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor] |
| 12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
| 2471 | Are concepts best seen as capacities? [Fodor] |
| 2472 | For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something [Fodor] |
| 12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
| 12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
| 12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
| 12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
| 12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
| 13890 | Entities fall under a sortal concept if they can be used to explain identity statements concerning them [Wright,C] |
| 12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
| 12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
| 12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
| 12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
| 12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
| 12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
| 12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
| 13898 | If we can establish directions from lines and parallelism, we were already committed to directions [Wright,C] |
| 2439 | Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor] |
| 2457 | If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor] |
| 2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
| 2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
| 3006 | Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor] |
| 2451 | To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor] |
| 3007 | Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor] |
| 13882 | A milder claim is that understanding requires some evidence of that understanding [Wright,C] |
| 3004 | The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor] |
| 3000 | Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor] |
| 2433 | For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor] |
| 2477 | If to understand "fish" you must know facts about them, where does that end? [Fodor] |
| 7320 | Holism cannot give a coherent account of scientific methodology [Wright,C, by Miller,A] |
| 3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
| 12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
| 2996 | Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor] |
| 7305 | Kripke's Wittgenstein says meaning 'vanishes into thin air' [Kripke, by Miller,A] |
| 19270 | If you ask what is in your mind for following the addition rule, meaning just seems to vanish [Kripke] |
| 12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
| 13885 | If apparent reference can mislead, then so can apparent lack of reference [Wright,C] |
| 16394 | Kripke derives accounts of reference and proper names from assumptions about worlds and essences [Stalnaker on Kripke] |
| 17874 | Kripke has a definitional account of kinds, but not of naming [Almog on Kripke] |
| 5822 | The important cause is not between dubbing and current use, but between the item and the speaker's information [Evans on Kripke] |
| 17033 | We may refer through a causal chain, but still change what is referred to [Kripke] |
| 4689 | Kripke makes reference a largely social matter, external to the mind of the speaker [Kripke, by McGinn] |
| 17504 | Kripke's theory is important because it gives a collective account of reference [Kripke, by Putnam] |
| 17035 | We refer through the community, going back to the original referent [Kripke] |
| 4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
| 2436 | It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor] |
| 16988 | Descriptive reference shows how to refer, how to identify two things, and how to challenge existence [Kripke, by PG] |
| 17029 | It can't be necessary that Aristotle had the properties commonly attributed to him [Kripke] |
| 17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
| 2434 | Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor] |
| 12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
| 12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
| 12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
| 17857 | We can accept Frege's idea of object without assuming that predicates have a reference [Wright,C] |
| 11076 | Community implies assertability-conditions rather than truth-conditions semantics [Kripke, by Hanna] |
| 2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
| 14893 | Rigid designation creates a puzzle - why do some necessary truths appear to be contingent? [Kripke, by Maciŕ/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
| 2473 | Analysis is impossible without the analytic/synthetic distinction [Fodor] |
| 11075 | The sceptical rule-following paradox is the basis of the private language argument [Kripke, by Hanna] |
| 2484 | The theory of the content of thought as 'Mentalese' explains why the Private Language Argument doesn't work [Fodor] |
| 12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
| 4963 | The properties that fix reference are contingent, the properties involving meaning are necessary [Kripke] |
| 17056 | Terms for natural kinds are very close to proper names [Kripke] |
| 17053 | Gold's atomic number might not be 79, but if it is, could non-79 stuff be gold? [Kripke] |
| 4964 | 'Cats are animals' has turned out to be a necessary truth [Kripke] |
| 6765 | Nominal essence may well be neither necessary nor sufficient for a natural kind [Kripke, by Bird] |
| 9387 | The scientific discovery (if correct) that gold has atomic number 79 is a necessary truth [Kripke] |
| 17054 | Scientific discoveries about gold are necessary truths [Kripke] |
| 17057 | Once we've found that heat is molecular motion, then that's what it is, in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| 4965 | Science searches basic structures in search of essences [Kripke] |
| 3977 | Laws are true generalisations which support counterfactuals and are confirmed by instances [Fodor] |
| 17050 | Tigers may lack all the properties we originally used to identify them [Kripke] |
| 17049 | 'Tiger' designates a species, and merely looking like the species is not enough [Kripke] |
| 17051 | The original concept of 'cat' comes from paradigmatic instances [Kripke] |