44 ideas
22285 | Impredicative definitions are circular, but fine for picking out, rather than creating something [Potter] |
22301 | The Identity Theory says a proposition is true if it coincides with what makes it true [Potter] |
22324 | It has been unfortunate that externalism about truth is equated with correspondence [Potter] |
10702 | Set theory's three roles: taming the infinite, subject-matter of mathematics, and modes of reasoning [Potter] |
10713 | Usually the only reason given for accepting the empty set is convenience [Potter] |
13044 | Infinity: There is at least one limit level [Potter] |
10708 | Nowadays we derive our conception of collections from the dependence between them [Potter] |
13546 | The 'limitation of size' principles say whether properties collectivise depends on the number of objects [Potter] |
10707 | Mereology elides the distinction between the cards in a pack and the suits [Potter] |
10704 | We can formalize second-order formation rules, but not inference rules [Potter] |
22279 | Frege's sign |--- meant judgements, but the modern |- turnstile means inference, with intecedents [Potter] |
22291 | Deductivism can't explain how the world supports unconditional conclusions [Potter] |
10703 | Supposing axioms (rather than accepting them) give truths, but they are conditional [Potter] |
22295 | Modern logical truths are true under all interpretations of the non-logical words [Potter] |
10712 | If set theory didn't found mathematics, it is still needed to count infinite sets [Potter] |
17882 | It is remarkable that all natural number arithmetic derives from just the Peano Axioms [Potter] |
22310 | The formalist defence against Gödel is to reject his metalinguistic concept of truth [Potter] |
22298 | Why is fictional arithmetic applicable to the real world? [Potter] |
22287 | If 'concrete' is the negative of 'abstract', that means desires and hallucinations are concrete [Potter] |
13043 | A relation is a set consisting entirely of ordered pairs [Potter] |
22284 | 'Greater than', which is the ancestral of 'successor', strictly orders the natural numbers [Potter] |
13042 | If dependence is well-founded, with no infinite backward chains, this implies substances [Potter] |
13041 | Collections have fixed members, but fusions can be carved in innumerable ways [Potter] |
10709 | Priority is a modality, arising from collections and members [Potter] |
22281 | A material conditional cannot capture counterfactual reasoning [Potter] |
22327 | Knowledge from a drunken schoolteacher is from a reliable and unreliable process [Potter] |
22273 | Traditionally there are twelve categories of judgement, in groups of three [Potter] |
22290 | The phrase 'the concept "horse"' can't refer to a concept, because it is saturated [Potter] |
22283 | Compositionality should rely on the parsing tree, which may contain more than sentence components [Potter] |
22282 | 'Direct compositonality' says the components wholly explain a sentence meaning [Potter] |
22296 | Compositionality is more welcome in logic than in linguistics (which is more contextual) [Potter] |
1868 | The world was made as much for animals as for man [Celsus] |
8388 | Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley] |
8389 | Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley] |
8416 | Reductionists can't explain accidents, uninstantiated laws, probabilities, or the existence of any laws [Tooley] |
8393 | We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley] |
8390 | Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley] |
8418 | Quantum physics suggests that the basic laws of nature are probabilistic [Tooley] |
8392 | Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley] |
8399 | The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley] |
8391 | In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley] |
8394 | Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley] |
8398 | Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley] |
1867 | Christians presented Jesus as a new kind of logos to oppose that of the philosophers [Celsus] |