53 ideas
| 3358 | Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA] |
| 3312 | There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA] |
| 3352 | Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA] |
| 3329 | Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3750 | "It is true that x" means no more than x [Ramsey] |
| 3326 | Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA] |
| 3327 | The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA] |
| 3335 | The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG] |
| 13430 | Infinity: there is an infinity of distinguishable individuals [Ramsey] |
| 13428 | Reducibility: to every non-elementary function there is an equivalent elementary function [Ramsey] |
| 13427 | Either 'a = b' vacuously names the same thing, or absurdly names different things [Ramsey] |
| 13334 | Contradictions are either purely logical or mathematical, or they involved thought and language [Ramsey] |
| 3332 | Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3330 | Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA] |
| 3337 | Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA] |
| 6409 | The 'simple theory of types' distinguishes levels among properties [Ramsey, by Grayling] |
| 13426 | Formalists neglect content, but the logicists have focused on generalizations, and neglected form [Ramsey] |
| 13425 | Formalism is hopeless, because it focuses on propositions and ignores concepts [Ramsey] |
| 3310 | If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA] |
| 16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 12793 | Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA] |
| 16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| 8495 | The distinction between particulars and universals is a mistake made because of language [Ramsey] |
| 8493 | We could make universals collections of particulars, or particulars collections of their qualities [Ramsey] |
| 3353 | If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA] |
| 8494 | Obviously 'Socrates is wise' and 'Socrates has wisdom' express the same fact [Ramsey] |
| 3304 | Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3350 | Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3309 | If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3351 | One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA] |
| 3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
| 3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
| 13766 | 'If' is the same as 'given that', so the degrees of belief should conform to probability theory [Ramsey, by Ramsey] |
| 10993 | Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read] |
| 14279 | Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey] |
| 3212 | Beliefs are maps by which we steer [Ramsey] |
| 22328 | I just confront the evidence, and let it act on me [Ramsey] |
| 3306 | The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA] |
| 3349 | If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA] |
| 3341 | Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA] |
| 3344 | Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA] |
| 3345 | Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA] |
| 22325 | A belief is knowledge if it is true, certain and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
| 19724 | Belief is knowledge if it is true, certain, and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
| 6894 | Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey] |
| 19143 | Ramsey gave axioms for an uncertain agent to decide their preferences [Ramsey, by Davidson] |
| 18818 | Sentence meaning is given by the actions to which it would lead [Ramsey] |
| 9418 | All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey] |
| 9420 | Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey] |
| 3334 | Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA] |
| 3308 | In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA] |