44 ideas
7973 | There is no longer anything on which there is nothing to say [Baudrillard] |
14611 | Metaphysics should avoid talk of past, present or future [Smart] |
6841 | Some continental philosophers are relativists - Baudrillard, for example [Baudrillard, by Critchley] |
7975 | The task of philosophy is to unmask the illusion of objective reality [Baudrillard] |
17070 | Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart] |
17072 | We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart] |
7986 | Drunken boat pilots are less likely to collide than clearly focused ones [Baudrillard] |
7982 | Instead of thesis and antithesis leading to synthesis, they now cancel out, and the conflict is levelled [Baudrillard] |
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15941 | For intuitionists excluded middle is an outdated historical convention [Brouwer] |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] |
18118 | Brouwer regards the application of mathematics to the world as somehow 'wicked' [Brouwer, by Bostock] |
12451 | Scientific laws largely rest on the results of counting and measuring [Brouwer] |
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] |
7974 | Without God we faced reality: what do we face without reality? [Baudrillard] |
7987 | Nothing is true, but everything is exact [Baudrillard] |
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] |
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] |
17061 | Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [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] |
7978 | There is no need to involve the idea of free will to make choices about one's life [Baudrillard] |
10117 | Intuitonists in mathematics worried about unjustified assertion, as well as contradiction [Brouwer, by George/Velleman] |
7980 | In modern times, being useless is the essential aesthetic ingredient for an object [Baudrillard] |
7983 | Good versus evil has been banefully reduced to happiness versus misfortune [Baudrillard] |
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] |
7981 | Whole populations are terrorist threats to authorities, who unite against them [Baudrillard] |
7976 | People like democracy because it means they can avoid power [Baudrillard] |
7977 | Only in the last 200 years have people demanded the democratic privilege of being individuals [Baudrillard] |
7979 | The arrival of the news media brought history to an end [Baudrillard] |
7984 | Suicide is ascribed to depression, with the originality of the act of will ignored [Baudrillard] |
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] |
7985 | Pascal says secular life is acceptable, but more fun with the hypothesis of God [Baudrillard] |