36 ideas
| 13966 | Analytic philosophy loved the necessary a priori analytic, linguistic modality, and rigour [Soames] |
| 13974 | If philosophy is analysis of meaning, available to all competent speakers, what's left for philosophers? [Soames] |
| 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] |
| 15163 | The interest of quantified modal logic is its metaphysical necessity and essentialism [Soames] |
| 10247 | We have no adequate logic at the moment, so mathematicians must create one [Veblen] |
| 15158 | Indefinite descriptions are quantificational in subject position, but not in predicate position [Soames] |
| 15157 | Recognising the definite description 'the man' as a quantifier phrase, not a singular term, is a real insight [Soames] |
| 15156 | The universal and existential quantifiers were chosen to suit mathematics [Soames] |
| 13969 | Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames] |
| 15161 | There are more metaphysically than logically necessary truths [Soames] |
| 15162 | We understand metaphysical necessity intuitively, from ordinary life [Soames] |
| 3105 | Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal] |
| 13973 | A key achievement of Kripke is showing that important modalities are not linguistic in source [Soames] |
| 3106 | If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal] |
| 13968 | Kripkean possible worlds are abstract maximal states in which the real world could have been [Soames] |
| 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] |
| 15152 | To study meaning, study truth conditions, on the basis of syntax, and representation by the parts [Soames] |
| 15153 | Tarski's account of truth-conditions is too weak to determine meanings [Soames] |
| 13965 | Semantics as theory of meaning and semantics as truth-based logical consequence are very different [Soames] |
| 13964 | Semantic content is a proposition made of sentence constituents (not some set of circumstances) [Soames] |
| 13972 | Two-dimensionalism reinstates descriptivism, and reconnects necessity and apriority to analyticity [Soames] |
| 15154 | We should use cognitive states to explain representational propositions, not vice versa [Soames] |