52 ideas
| 22140 | The greatest philosophers are methodical; it is what makes them great [Grice] |
| 23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
| 23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
| 23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
| 23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
| 4986 | A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws' [Kirk,R] |
| 23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
| 23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
| 23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
| 23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
| 23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
| 23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
| 23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
| 23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
| 23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
| 23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
| 13856 | Conditionals are truth-functional, but we must take care with misleading ones [Grice, by Edgington] |
| 8948 | The odd truth table for material conditionals is explained by conversational conventions [Grice, by Fisher] |
| 13767 | Conditionals might remain truth-functional, despite inappropriate conversational remarks [Edgington on Grice] |
| 10990 | Conditionals are truth-functional, but unassertable in tricky cases? [Grice, by Read] |
| 14277 | A person can be justified in believing a proposition, though it is unreasonable to actually say it [Grice, by Edgington] |
| 5001 | Maybe we should see intentionality and consciousness as a single problem, not two [Kirk,R] |
| 4993 | If a bird captures a worm, we could say its behaviour is 'about' the worm [Kirk,R] |
| 5000 | Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal [Kirk,R] |
| 4982 | Dualism implies some brain events with no physical cause, and others with no physical effect [Kirk,R] |
| 4991 | Behaviourism seems a good theory for intentional states, but bad for phenomenal ones [Kirk,R] |
| 4994 | Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships [Kirk,R] |
| 4992 | In 'holistic' behaviourism we say a mental state is a complex of many dispositions [Kirk,R] |
| 4990 | The inverted spectrum idea is often regarded as an objection to behaviourism [Kirk,R] |
| 4984 | All meaningful psychological statements can be translated into physics [Kirk,R] |
| 4998 | Instead of representation by sentences, it can be by a distribution of connectionist strengths [Kirk,R] |
| 4985 | If mental states are multiply realisable, they could not be translated into physical terms [Kirk,R] |
| 4997 | It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them [Kirk,R] |
| 7751 | Meaning needs an intention to induce a belief, and a recognition that this is the speaker's intention [Grice] |
| 7752 | Only the utterer's primary intention is relevant to the meaning [Grice] |
| 7753 | We judge linguistic intentions rather as we judge non-linguistic intentions, so they are alike [Grice] |
| 4999 | For behaviourists language is just a special kind of behaviour [Kirk,R] |
| 22330 | Grice said patterns of use are often semantically irrelevant, because it is a pragmatic matter [Grice, by Glock] |
| 4995 | Behaviourists doubt whether reference is a single type of relation [Kirk,R] |
| 18045 | Grice's maxim of quality says do not assert what you believe to be false [Grice, by Magidor] |
| 18044 | Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible [Grice, by Magidor] |
| 10991 | Key conversational maxims are 'quality' (assert truth) and 'quantity' (leave nothing out) [Grice, by Read] |
| 18046 | Grice's maxim of quantity says be sufficiently informative [Grice, by Magidor] |
| 23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
| 23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
| 23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
| 23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |