44 ideas
| 12154 | Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry] |
| 10735 | Abstraction from objects won't reveal an operation's being performed 'so many times' [Geach] |
| 8780 | Attributes are functions, not objects; this distinguishes 'square of 2' from 'double of 2' [Geach] |
| 8969 | We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category [Geach, by Hawthorne] |
| 16075 | Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach] |
| 12152 | Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach] |
| 16073 | Leibniz's Law is incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate [Geach, by Wasserman] |
| 11910 | Being 'the same' is meaningless, unless we specify 'the same X' [Geach] |
| 8775 | A big flea is a small animal, so 'big' and 'small' cannot be acquired by abstraction [Geach] |
| 8776 | We cannot learn relations by abstraction, because their converse must be learned too [Geach] |
| 10732 | If concepts are just recognitional, then general judgements would be impossible [Geach] |
| 2567 | You can't define real mental states in terms of behaviour that never happens [Geach] |
| 2568 | Beliefs aren't tied to particular behaviours [Geach] |
| 8781 | The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them [Geach] |
| 10731 | For abstractionists, concepts are capacities to recognise recurrent features of the world [Geach] |
| 8769 | If someone has aphasia but can still play chess, they clearly have concepts [Geach] |
| 8770 | 'Abstractionism' is acquiring a concept by picking out one experience amongst a group [Geach] |
| 8771 | 'Or' and 'not' are not to be found in the sensible world, or even in the world of inner experience [Geach] |
| 8772 | We can't acquire number-concepts by extracting the number from the things being counted [Geach] |
| 8773 | Abstractionists can't explain counting, because it must precede experience of objects [Geach] |
| 8774 | The numbers don't exist in nature, so they cannot have been abstracted from there into our languages [Geach] |
| 8778 | Blind people can use colour words like 'red' perfectly intelligently [Geach] |
| 8777 | If 'black' and 'cat' can be used in the absence of such objects, how can such usage be abstracted? [Geach] |
| 8779 | We can form two different abstract concepts that apply to a single unified experience [Geach] |
| 10733 | The abstractionist cannot explain 'some' and 'not' [Geach] |
| 10734 | Only a judgement can distinguish 'striking' from 'being struck' [Geach] |
| 20289 | Ethics is universalisable - it must involve an impartial and universal view of things [Singer] |
| 20286 | Following an inner voice for morality is irresponsible in a rational agent [Singer] |
| 20282 | The sanctity of a human life depends either on being of our species, or on being a person [Singer] |
| 22489 | 'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot] |
| 20278 | 'Marginal utility' says something is more useful if it is in short supply [Singer] |
| 20281 | Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me? [Singer] |
| 20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
| 20276 | Conflict of rules might be avoided by greater complexity, or by a hierarchy of rules [Singer] |
| 20290 | Psychopaths may just be bored, because they cannot participate in normal emotional life [Singer] |
| 20288 | You can't condemn violent revolution without assessing the evils it prevents [Singer] |
| 21997 | In Marxism the state will be superseded [Singer] |
| 20287 | If 49% of the population can be wrong, so can 51% [Singer] |
| 21993 | Materialist history says we are subject to incomprehensible forces [Singer] |
| 20277 | Equality of interests is a minimal principle, not implying equal treatment [Singer] |
| 20279 | Equality of opportunity unfairly rewards those lucky enough to have great ability [Singer] |
| 20285 | If a right entails having the relevant desire, many creatures might have no right to life [Singer] |
| 20284 | Why should a potential person have the rights of an actual person? [Singer] |
| 20283 | Killing a chimp is worse than killing a human too defective to be a person [Singer] |