504 ideas
| 21463 | Hamann, Herder and Jacobi were key opponents of the Enlightenment [Gardner] |
| 21459 | Kant halted rationalism, and forced empiricists to worry about foundations [Gardner] |
| 12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
| 16281 | Honesty requires philosophical theories we can commit to with our ordinary commonsense [Lewis] |
| 21461 | I tried to be unsystematic and piecemeal, but failed; my papers presuppose my other views [Lewis] |
| 21460 | Only Kant and Hegel have united nature, morals, politics, aesthetics and religion [Gardner] |
| 16288 | Analysis reduces primitives and makes understanding explicit (without adding new knowledge) [Lewis] |
| 15545 | Armstrong's analysis seeks truthmakers rather than definitions [Lewis] |
| 12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
| 8605 | In addition to analysis of a concept, one can deny it, or accept it as primitive [Lewis] |
| 2474 | It seems likely that analysis of concepts is impossible, but justification can survive without it [Fodor] |
| 2481 | Despite all the efforts of philosophers, nothing can ever be reduced to anything [Fodor] |
| 2505 | Turing invented the idea of mechanical rationality (just based on syntax) [Fodor] |
| 2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
| 15457 | Interdefinition is useless by itself, but if we grasp one separately, we have them both [Lewis] |
| 15527 | Defining terms either enables elimination, or shows that they don't require elimination [Lewis] |
| 12619 | We have no successful definitions, because they all use indefinable words [Fodor] |
| 3993 | Arguments are nearly always open to challenge, but they help to explain a position rather than force people to believe [Lewis] |
| 2470 | Transcendental arguments move from knowing Q to knowing P because it depends on Q [Fodor] |
| 21443 | Transcendental proofs derive necessities from possibilities (e.g. possibility of experiencing objects) [Gardner] |
| 2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
| 10845 | To be true a sentence must express a proposition, and not be ambiguous or vague or just expressive [Lewis] |
| 9651 | Verisimilitude might be explained as being close to the possible world where the truth is exact [Lewis] |
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 10847 | Truthmakers are about existential grounding, not about truth [Lewis] |
| 15546 | Predications aren't true because of what exists, but of how it exists [Lewis] |
| 15548 | Say 'truth is supervenient on being', but construe 'being' broadly [Lewis] |
| 15549 | If it were true that nothing at all existed, would that have a truthmaker? [Lewis] |
| 14399 | Presentism says only the present exists, so there is nothing for tensed truths to supervene on [Lewis] |
| 10846 | Truthmaker is correspondence, but without the requirement to be one-to-one [Lewis] |
| 16456 | For modality Lewis rejected boxes and diamonds, preferring worlds, and an index for the actual one [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| 18395 | Sets are mereological sums of the singletons of their members [Lewis, by Armstrong] |
| 15496 | We can build set theory on singletons: classes are then fusions of subclasses, membership is the singleton [Lewis] |
| 10807 | Mathematics reduces to set theory, which reduces, with some mereology, to the singleton function [Lewis] |
| 15500 | Classes divide into subclasses in many ways, but into members in only one way [Lewis] |
| 15499 | A subclass of a subclass is itself a subclass; a member of a member is not in general a member [Lewis] |
| 15503 | We needn't accept this speck of nothingness, this black hole in the fabric of Reality! [Lewis] |
| 15498 | We can accept the null set, but there is no null class of anything [Lewis] |
| 15502 | There are four main reasons for asserting that there is an empty set [Lewis] |
| 10809 | We can accept the null set, but not a null class, a class lacking members [Lewis] |
| 10811 | The null set plays the role of last resort, for class abstracts and for existence [Lewis] |
| 10812 | The null set is not a little speck of sheer nothingness, a black hole in Reality [Lewis] |
| 15506 | If we don't understand the singleton, then we don't understand classes [Lewis] |
| 15497 | We can replace the membership relation with the member-singleton relation (plus mereology) [Lewis] |
| 15511 | If singleton membership is external, why is an object a member of one rather than another? [Lewis] |
| 15513 | Maybe singletons have a structure, of a thing and a lasso? [Lewis] |
| 10813 | What on earth is the relationship between a singleton and an element? [Lewis] |
| 10814 | Are all singletons exact intrinsic duplicates? [Lewis] |
| 15507 | Set theory has some unofficial axioms, generalisations about how to understand it [Lewis] |
| 10191 | Set theory reduces to a mereological theory with singletons as the only atoms [Lewis, by MacBride] |
| 15508 | If singletons are where their members are, then so are all sets [Lewis] |
| 15514 | A huge part of Reality is only accepted as existing if you have accepted set theory [Lewis] |
| 15523 | Set theory isn't innocent; it generates infinities from a single thing; but mathematics needs it [Lewis] |
| 10806 | Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification to mereology [Lewis] |
| 2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
| 12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
| 10816 | We can use mereology to simulate quantification over relations [Lewis] |
| 3005 | 'Jocasta' needs to be distinguished from 'Oedipus's mother' because they are connected by different properties [Fodor] |
| 12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
| 12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
| 15533 | We can quantify over fictions by quantifying for real over their names [Lewis] |
| 15731 | Quantification sometimes commits to 'sets', but sometimes just to pluralities (or 'classes') [Lewis] |
| 15525 | Plural quantification lacks a complete axiom system [Lewis] |
| 15518 | I like plural quantification, but am not convinced of its connection with second-order logic [Lewis] |
| 15534 | We could quantify over impossible objects - as bundles of properties [Lewis] |
| 14212 | A consistent theory just needs one model; isomorphic versions will do too, and large domains provide those [Lewis] |
| 12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
| 21444 | Modern geoemtry is either 'pure' (and formal), or 'applied' (and a posteriori) [Gardner] |
| 10808 | Mathematics is generalisations about singleton functions [Lewis] |
| 15524 | Zermelo's model of arithmetic is distinctive because it rests on a primitive of set theory [Lewis] |
| 15517 | Giving up classes means giving up successful mathematics because of dubious philosophy [Lewis] |
| 15515 | To be a structuralist, you quantify over relations [Lewis] |
| 10815 | We don't need 'abstract structures' to have structural truths about successor functions [Lewis] |
| 15532 | 'Allists' embrace the existence of all controversial entities; 'noneists' reject all but the obvious ones [Lewis] |
| 15535 | We can't accept a use of 'existence' that says only some of the things there are actually exist [Lewis] |
| 15789 | Lewis's distinction of 'existing' from 'being actual' is Meinong's between 'existing' and 'subsisting' [Lycan on Lewis] |
| 10470 | There are only two kinds: sets, and possibilia (actual and possible particulars) [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 12620 | If 'exist' is ambiguous in 'chairs and numbers exist', that mirrors the difference between chairs and numbers [Fodor] |
| 15520 | Existence doesn't come in degrees; once asserted, it can't then be qualified [Lewis] |
| 14401 | Every proposition is entirely about being [Lewis] |
| 15540 | You can't deny temporary intrinsic properties by saying the properties are relations (to times) [Lewis] |
| 15561 | The events that suit semantics may not be the events that suit causation [Lewis] |
| 15565 | Events have inbuilt essences, as necessary conditions for their occurrence [Lewis] |
| 15566 | Events are classes, and so there is a mereology of their parts [Lewis] |
| 15567 | Some events involve no change; they must, because causal histories involve unchanges [Lewis] |
| 15564 | An event is a property of a unique space-time region [Lewis] |
| 8607 | Supervenience is reduction without existence denials, ontological priorities, or translatability [Lewis] |
| 3990 | The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth [Lewis] |
| 9650 | Supervenience concerns whether things could differ, so it is a modal notion [Lewis] |
| 3991 | Where pixels make up a picture, supervenience is reduction [Lewis] |
| 8606 | A supervenience thesis is a denial of independent variation [Lewis] |
| 16210 | Humean supervenience says the world is just a vast mosaic of qualities in space-time [Lewis] |
| 21453 | Leibnizian monads qualify as Kantian noumena [Gardner] |
| 15501 | We have no idea of a third sort of thing, that isn't an individual, a class, or their mixture [Lewis] |
| 15504 | Atomless gunk is an individual whose parts all have further proper parts [Lewis] |
| 14213 | Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis] |
| 8580 | Materialism is (roughly) that two worlds cannot differ without differing physically [Lewis] |
| 8909 | Abstractions may well be verbal fictions, in which we ignore some features of an object [Lewis] |
| 15543 | How do things combine to make states of affairs? Constituents can repeat, and fail to combine [Lewis] |
| 16458 | Semantic vagueness involves alternative and equal precisifications of the language [Lewis] |
| 9057 | Vagueness is semantic indecision: we haven't settled quite what our words are meant to express [Lewis] |
| 9671 | Whether or not France is hexagonal depends on your standards of precision [Lewis] |
| 15538 | Semantic indecision explains vagueness (if we have precisifications to be undecided about) [Lewis] |
| 15751 | Surely 'slept in by Washington' is a property of some bed? [Lewis] |
| 8571 | Universals are wholly present in their instances, whereas properties are spread around [Lewis] |
| 15735 | Properties don't have degree; they are determinate, and things have varying relations to them [Lewis] |
| 9656 | The 'abundant' properties are just any bizarre property you fancy [Lewis] |
| 15737 | To be a 'property' is to suit a theoretical role [Lewis] |
| 14979 | Being alone doesn't guarantee intrinsic properties; 'being alone' is itself extrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15454 | Extrinsic properties come in degrees, with 'brother' less extrinsic than 'sibling' [Lewis] |
| 15742 | A disjunctive property can be unnatural, but intrinsic if its disjuncts are intrinsic [Lewis] |
| 15397 | If a global intrinsic never varies between possible duplicates, all necessary properties are intrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15398 | Global intrinsic may make necessarily coextensive properties both intrinsic or both extrinsic [Cameron on Lewis] |
| 15435 | If you think universals are immanent, you must believe them to be sparse, and not every related predicate [Lewis] |
| 15400 | We must avoid circularity between what is intrinsic and what is natural [Lewis, by Cameron] |
| 15458 | A property is 'intrinsic' iff it can never differ between duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15459 | Ellipsoidal stars seem to have an intrinsic property which depends on other objects [Lewis] |
| 15741 | All of the natural properties are included among the intrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 15752 | We might try defining the natural properties by a short list of them [Lewis] |
| 10717 | Natural properties figure in the analysis of similarity in intrinsic respects [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 16217 | Lewisian natural properties fix reference of predicates, through a principle of charity [Lewis, by Hawley] |
| 8613 | Objects are demarcated by density and chemistry, and natural properties belong in what is well demarcated [Lewis] |
| 8585 | Reference partly concerns thought and language, partly eligibility of referent by natural properties [Lewis] |
| 8586 | Natural properties tend to belong to well-demarcated things, typically loci of causal chains [Lewis] |
| 8589 | For us, a property being natural is just an aspect of its featuring in the contents of our attitudes [Lewis] |
| 15460 | All perfectly natural properties are intrinsic [Lewis, by Lewis] |
| 15726 | Natural properties fix resemblance and powers, and are picked out by universals [Lewis] |
| 14996 | Natural properties give similarity, joint carving, intrinsicness, specificity, homogeneity... [Lewis] |
| 15744 | We can't define natural properties by resemblance, if they are used to explain resemblance [Lewis] |
| 15743 | Defining natural properties by means of laws of nature is potentially circular [Lewis] |
| 15740 | I don't take 'natural' properties to be fixed by the nature of one possible world [Lewis] |
| 16262 | Sparse properties rest either on universals, or on tropes, or on primitive naturalness [Lewis, by Maudlin] |
| 15451 | I assume there could be natural properties that are not instantiated in our world [Lewis] |
| 7031 | Lewis says properties are sets of actual and possible objects [Lewis, by Heil] |
| 8572 | Any class of things is a property, no matter how whimsical or irrelevant [Lewis] |
| 15464 | The distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties leads to confusion [Lewis] |
| 2469 | The world is full of messy small things producing stable large-scale properties (e.g. mountains) [Fodor] |
| 18433 | There are far more properties than any brain could ever encodify [Lewis] |
| 8604 | We need properties as semantic values for linguistic expressions [Lewis] |
| 15739 | There is the property of belonging to a set, so abundant properties are as numerous as the sets [Lewis] |
| 15563 | Properties are very abundant (unlike universals), and are used for semantics and higher-order variables [Lewis] |
| 7014 | A particle and a coin heads-or-tails pick out to perfectly well-defined predicates and properties [Fodor] |
| 10723 | A property is the set of its actual and possible instances [Lewis, by Oliver] |
| 14499 | Properties are classes of possible and actual concrete particulars [Lewis, by Koslicki] |
| 4038 | Properties are sets of their possible instances (which separates 'renate' from 'cordate') [Lewis, by Mellor/Oliver] |
| 15399 | The property of being F is identical with the set of objects, in all possible worlds, which are F [Lewis, by Cameron] |
| 15732 | Properties don't seem to be sets, because different properties can have the same set [Lewis] |
| 15733 | Accidentally coextensive properties come apart when we include their possible instances [Lewis] |
| 15734 | If a property is relative, such as being a father or son, then set membership seems relative too [Lewis] |
| 15516 | A property is any class of possibilia [Lewis] |
| 9655 | Trilateral and triangular seem to be coextensive sets in all possible worlds [Lewis] |
| 16290 | I believe in properties, which are sets of possible individuals [Lewis] |
| 9653 | It would be easiest to take a property as the set of its instances [Lewis] |
| 9657 | You must accept primitive similarity to like tropes, but tropes give a good account of it [Lewis] |
| 15433 | Tropes are particular properties, which cannot recur, but can be exact duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15750 | Tropes need a similarity primitive, so they cannot be used to explain similarity [Lewis] |
| 15749 | Trope theory (unlike universals) needs a primitive notion of being duplicates [Lewis] |
| 15748 | Trope theory needs a primitive notion for what unites some tropes [Lewis] |
| 9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
| 15463 | All dispositions must have causal bases [Lewis] |
| 15120 | Lewisian properties have powers because of their relationships to other properties [Lewis, by Hawthorne] |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| 15461 | A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis] |
| 12613 | Empiricists use dispositions reductively, as 'possibility of sensation' or 'possibility of experimental result' [Fodor] |
| 8573 | Most properties are causally irrelevant, and we can't spot the relevant ones. [Lewis] |
| 8569 | I suspend judgements about universals, but their work must be done [Lewis] |
| 15745 | Universals recur, are multiply located, wholly present, make things overlap, and are held in common [Lewis] |
| 15453 | The main rivals to universals are resemblance or natural-class nominalism, or sparse trope theory [Lewis] |
| 15746 | If particles were just made of universals, similar particles would be the same particle [Lewis] |
| 15436 | Universals are meant to give an account of resemblance [Lewis] |
| 21961 | Physics aims to discover which universals actually exist [Lewis, by Moore,AW] |
| 15747 | Universals aren't parts of things, because that relationship is transitive, and universals need not be [Lewis] |
| 2475 | Don't define something by a good instance of it; a good example is a special case of the ordinary example [Fodor] |
| 8576 | The One over Many problem (in predication terms) deserves to be neglected (by ostriches) [Lewis] |
| 15438 | We can add a primitive natural/unnatural distinction to class nominalism [Lewis] |
| 8570 | To have a property is to be a member of a class, usually a class of things [Lewis] |
| 8574 | Class Nominalism and Resemblance Nominalism are pretty much the same [Lewis] |
| 15455 | Total intrinsic properties give us what a thing is [Lewis] |
| 15537 | If cats are vague, we deny that the many cats are one, or deny that the one cat is many [Lewis] |
| 15536 | We have one cloud, but many possible boundaries and aggregates for it [Lewis] |
| 15452 | We could not uphold a truthmaker for 'Fa' without structures [Lewis] |
| 15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
| 15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
| 15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
| 15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
| 15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
| 15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
| 15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
| 15446 | Composition is not just making new things from old; there are too many counterexamples [Lewis] |
| 14748 | The many are many and the one is one, so they can't be identical [Lewis] |
| 6129 | Lewis affirms 'composition as identity' - that an object is no more than its parts [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 14210 | A gerrymandered mereological sum can be a mess, but still have natural joints [Lewis] |
| 15512 | In mereology no two things consist of the same atoms [Lewis] |
| 15519 | Trout-turkeys exist, despite lacking cohesion, natural joints and united causal power [Lewis] |
| 15521 | Given cats, a fusion of cats adds nothing further to reality [Lewis] |
| 15522 | The one has different truths from the many; it is one rather than many, one rather than six [Lewis] |
| 14244 | Lewis only uses fusions to create unities, but fusions notoriously flatten our distinctions [Oliver/Smiley on Lewis] |
| 10660 | A commitment to cat-fusions is not a further commitment; it is them and they are it [Lewis] |
| 10810 | I say that absolutely any things can have a mereological fusion [Lewis] |
| 9667 | Mereological composition is unrestricted: any class of things has a mereological sum [Lewis] |
| 13268 | There are no restrictions on composition, because they would be vague, and composition can't be vague [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15440 | A whole is distinct from its parts, but is not a further addition in ontology [Lewis] |
| 15444 | Different things (a toy house and toy car) can be made of the same parts at different times [Lewis] |
| 10566 | Lewis prefers giving up singletons to giving up sums [Lewis, by Fine,K] |
| 11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
| 13793 | An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder] |
| 9663 | A thing 'perdures' if it has separate temporal parts, and 'endures' if it is wholly present at different times [Lewis] |
| 14737 | Properties cannot be relations to times, if there are temporary properties which are intrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 9664 | Endurance is the wrong account, because things change intrinsic properties like shape [Lewis] |
| 9665 | There are three responses to the problem that intrinsic shapes do not endure [Lewis] |
| 19280 | I can ask questions which create a context in which origin ceases to be essential [Lewis] |
| 15968 | Identity is simple - absolutely everything is self-identical, and nothing is identical to another thing [Lewis] |
| 15969 | Two things can never be identical, so there is no problem [Lewis] |
| 16079 | De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker] |
| 11978 | Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis] |
| 12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| 14283 | A conditional probability does not measure the probability of the truth of any proposition [Lewis, by Edgington] |
| 14361 | Lewis says indicative conditionals are truth-functional [Lewis, by Jackson] |
| 8434 | In good counterfactuals the consequent holds in world like ours except that the antecedent is true [Lewis, by Horwich] |
| 8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
| 15462 | Backtracking counterfactuals go from supposed events to their required causal antecedents [Lewis] |
| 9660 | The impossible can be imagined as long as it is a bit vague [Lewis] |
| 9669 | There are no free-floating possibilia; they have mates in a world, giving them extrinsic properties [Lewis] |
| 16133 | Possible worlds can contain contradictions if such worlds are seen as fictions [Lewis] |
| 16132 | On mountains or in worlds, reporting contradictions is contradictory, so no such truths can be reported [Lewis] |
| 16283 | For me, all worlds are equal, with each being actual relative to itself [Lewis] |
| 12255 | For Lewis there is no real possibility, since all possibilities are actual [Oderberg on Lewis] |
| 9219 | Lewis posits possible worlds just as Quine says that physics needs numbers and sets [Lewis, by Sider] |
| 15022 | If possible worlds really exist, then they are part of actuality [Sider on Lewis] |
| 10469 | A world is a maximal mereological sum of spatiotemporally interrelated things [Lewis] |
| 15790 | Lewis can't know possible worlds without first knowing what is possible or impossible [Lycan on Lewis] |
| 18415 | The actual world is just the world you are in [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| 15791 | What are the ontological grounds for grouping possibilia into worlds? [Lycan on Lewis] |
| 16441 | Lewis rejects actualism because he identifies properties with sets [Lewis, by Stalnaker] |
| 16282 | Ersatzers say we have one world, and abstract representations of how it might have been [Lewis] |
| 16284 | Ersatz worlds represent either through language, or by models, or magically [Lewis] |
| 16286 | Linguistic possible worlds need a complete supply of unique names for each thing [Lewis] |
| 16287 | Maximal consistency for a world seems a modal distinction, concerning what could be true together [Lewis] |
| 9662 | Linguistic possible worlds have problems of inconsistencies, no indiscernibles, and vocabulary [Lewis] |
| 7690 | If sets exist, then defining worlds as proposition sets implies an odd distinction between existing and actual [Jacquette on Lewis] |
| 11979 | It doesn't take the whole of a possible Humphrey to win the election [Lewis] |
| 15530 | A logically determinate name names the same thing in every possible world [Lewis] |
| 16994 | Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis] |
| 11974 | Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis] |
| 11975 | If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis] |
| 11977 | Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis] |
| 14404 | The counterpart relation is sortal-relative, so objects need not be a certain way [Lewis, by Merricks] |
| 5440 | A counterpart in a possible world is sufficiently similar, and more similar than anything else [Lewis, by Mautner] |
| 5441 | Why should statements about what my 'counterpart' could have done interest me? [Mautner on Lewis] |
| 16291 | In counterpart theory 'Humphrey' doesn't name one being, but a mereological sum of many beings [Lewis] |
| 11903 | Extreme haecceitists could say I might have been a poached egg, but it is too remote to consider [Lewis, by Mackie,P] |
| 15129 | Haecceitism implies de re differences but qualitative identity [Lewis] |
| 9670 | Extreme haecceitism says you might possibly be a poached egg [Lewis] |
| 16392 | A content is a property, and believing it is self-ascribing that property [Lewis, by Recanati] |
| 12899 | The timid student has knowledge without belief, lacking confidence in their correct answer [Lewis] |
| 12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
| 2502 | How do you count beliefs? [Fodor] |
| 12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
| 12897 | To say S knows P, but cannot eliminate not-P, sounds like a contradiction [Lewis] |
| 2501 | Berkeley seems to have mistakenly thought that chairs are the same as after-images [Fodor] |
| 3008 | Evolution suggests that innate knowledge of human psychology would be beneficial [Fodor] |
| 2990 | Contrary to commonsense, most of what is in the mind seems to be unlearned [Fodor] |
| 3009 | Sticklebacks have an innate idea that red things are rivals [Fodor] |
| 15509 | Some say qualities are parts of things - as repeatable universals, or as particulars [Lewis] |
| 2465 | Maybe explaining the mechanics of perception will explain the concepts involved [Fodor] |
| 2504 | Rationalism can be based on an evolved computational brain with innate structure [Fodor] |
| 2493 | According to empiricists abstraction is the fundamental mental process [Fodor] |
| 3978 | Associations are held to connect Ideas together in the way the world is connected together [Fodor] |
| 12617 | Associationism can't explain how truth is preserved [Fodor] |
| 12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
| 2494 | Rationalists say there is more to a concept than the experience that prompts it [Fodor] |
| 12898 | Justification is neither sufficient nor necessary for knowledge [Lewis] |
| 16279 | General causal theories of knowledge are refuted by mathematics [Lewis] |
| 2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
| 12895 | Knowing is context-sensitive because the domain of quantification varies [Lewis, by Cohen,S] |
| 19562 | We have knowledge if alternatives are eliminated, but appropriate alternatives depend on context [Lewis, by Cohen,S] |
| 2461 | An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor] |
| 2454 | We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor] |
| 2455 | Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor] |
| 2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor] |
| 2458 | Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor] |
| 15528 | A Ramsey sentence just asserts that a theory can be realised, without saying by what [Lewis] |
| 15526 | There is a method for defining new scientific terms just using the terms we already understand [Lewis] |
| 15529 | It is better to have one realisation of a theory than many - but it may not always be possible [Lewis] |
| 15531 | The Ramsey sentence of a theory says that it has at least one realisation [Lewis] |
| 9661 | Induction is just reasonable methods of inferring the unobserved from the observed [Lewis] |
| 9652 | To just expect unexamined emeralds to be grue would be totally unreasonable [Lewis] |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| 9658 | An explanation tells us how an event was caused [Lewis] |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 16280 | Often explanaton seeks fundamental laws, rather than causal histories [Lewis] |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| 16274 | If the well-ordering of a pack of cards was by shuffling, the explanation would make it more surprising [Lewis] |
| 3995 | A mind is an organ of representation [Lewis] |
| 2503 | Empirical approaches see mind connections as mirrors/maps of reality [Fodor] |
| 2508 | The function of a mind is obvious [Fodor] |
| 12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
| 2994 | In CRTT thought may be represented, content must be [Fodor] |
| 2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
| 2453 | We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor] |
| 15473 | How does anything get outside itself? [Fodor, by Martin,CB] |
| 2485 | Do intentional states explain our behaviour? [Fodor] |
| 2981 | Is intentionality outwardly folk psychology, inwardly mentalese? [Lyons on Fodor] |
| 15494 | We can't use propositions to explain intentional attitudes, because they would need explaining [Fodor] |
| 7326 | Intentionality doesn't go deep enough to appear on the physicists' ultimate list of things [Fodor] |
| 3976 | Intentional science needs objects with semantic and causal properties, and which obey laws [Fodor] |
| 3980 | Intentional states and processes may be causal relations among mental symbols [Fodor] |
| 8209 | Part of the folk concept of qualia is what makes recognition and comparison possible [Lewis] |
| 15450 | Maybe abstraction is just mereological subtraction [Lewis] |
| 12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
| 2506 | If I have a set of mental modules, someone had better be in charge of them! [Fodor] |
| 8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
| 2446 | Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor] |
| 2445 | Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor] |
| 2599 | Either intentionality causes things, or epiphenomenalism is true [Fodor] |
| 3001 | Behaviourism has no theory of mental causation [Fodor] |
| 2467 | Functionalists see pains as properties involving relations and causation [Fodor] |
| 2993 | Any piece of software can always be hard-wired [Fodor] |
| 12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
| 3011 | Causal powers must be a crucial feature of mental states [Fodor] |
| 7441 | Experiences are defined by their causal role, and causal roles belong to physical states [Lewis] |
| 7442 | 'Pain' contingently names the state that occupies the causal role of pain [Lewis] |
| 7444 | Type-type psychophysical identity is combined with a functional characterisation of pain [Lewis] |
| 5498 | Mind is a set of hierarchical 'homunculi', which are made up in turn from subcomponents [Fodor, by Lycan] |
| 2597 | Contrary to the 'anomalous monist' view, there may well be intentional causal laws [Fodor] |
| 2489 | Why bother with neurons? You don't explain bird flight by examining feathers [Fodor] |
| 2985 | Are beliefs brains states, but picked out at a "higher level"? [Lyons on Fodor] |
| 2995 | Supervenience gives good support for mental causation [Fodor] |
| 3994 | Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis] |
| 8579 | Psychophysical identity implies the possibility of idealism or panpsychism [Lewis] |
| 2464 | Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor] |
| 2468 | Type physicalism is a stronger claim than token physicalism [Fodor] |
| 7445 | The application of 'pain' to physical states is non-rigid and contingent [Lewis] |
| 3989 | I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis] |
| 2490 | Modern connectionism is just Hume's theory of the 'association' of 'ideas' [Fodor] |
| 12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
| 2447 | Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor] |
| 2991 | Hume's associationism offers no explanation at all of rational thought [Fodor] |
| 3002 | If mind is just physical, how can it follow the rules required for intelligent thought? [Fodor] |
| 7443 | A theory must be mixed, to cover qualia without behaviour, and behaviour without qualia [Lewis, by PG] |
| 2598 | Lots of physical properties are multiply realisable, so why shouldn't beliefs be? [Fodor] |
| 3981 | Most psychological properties seem to be multiply realisable [Fodor] |
| 2992 | We may be able to explain rationality mechanically [Fodor] |
| 12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
| 2476 | The goal of thought is to understand the world, not instantly sort it into conceptual categories [Fodor] |
| 12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
| 18416 | Attitudes involve properties (not propositions), and belief is self-ascribing the properties [Lewis, by Solomon] |
| 2440 | Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor] |
| 3992 | Folk psychology makes good predictions, by associating mental states with causal roles [Lewis] |
| 2988 | Folk psychology is the only explanation of behaviour we have [Fodor] |
| 3975 | Folk psychology explains behaviour by reference to intentional states like belief and desire [Fodor] |
| 2450 | Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor] |
| 16390 | Lewis's popular centred worlds approach gives an attitude an index of world, subject and time [Lewis, by Recanati] |
| 2499 | Modules analyse stimuli, they don't tell you what to do [Fodor] |
| 2496 | Blindness doesn't destroy spatial concepts [Fodor] |
| 2497 | Something must take an overview of the modules [Fodor] |
| 2509 | Modules have in-built specialist information [Fodor] |
| 22186 | Mental modules are specialised, automatic, and isolated [Fodor, by Okasha] |
| 2491 | Modules have encapsulation, inaccessibility, private concepts, innateness [Fodor] |
| 2495 | Obvious modules are language and commonsense explanation [Fodor] |
| 2498 | Modules make the world manageable [Fodor] |
| 2500 | Babies talk in consistent patterns [Fodor] |
| 2507 | Rationality rises above modules [Fodor] |
| 2480 | Language is ambiguous, but thought isn't [Fodor] |
| 2487 | Mentalese may also incorporate some natural language [Fodor] |
| 2483 | Mentalese doesn't require a theory of meaning [Fodor] |
| 3996 | Folk psychology doesn't say that there is a language of thought [Lewis] |
| 3010 | Belief and desire are structured states, which need mentalese [Fodor] |
| 12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
| 8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin] |
| 2604 | We must have expressive power BEFORE we learn language [Fodor] |
| 12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
| 12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
| 3135 | Is thought a syntactic computation using representations? [Fodor, by Rey] |
| 12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
| 2983 | Maybe narrow content is physical, broad content less so [Lyons on Fodor] |
| 12615 | Mental representations are the old 'Ideas', but without images [Fodor] |
| 2437 | XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor] |
| 12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
| 2441 | Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor] |
| 3982 | How could the extrinsic properties of thoughts supervene on their intrinsic properties? [Fodor] |
| 3998 | If you don't share an external world with a brain-in-a-vat, then externalism says you don't share any beliefs [Lewis] |
| 3997 | Nothing shows that all content is 'wide', or that wide content has logical priority [Lewis] |
| 3999 | A spontaneous duplicate of you would have your brain states but no experience, so externalism would deny him any beliefs [Lewis] |
| 4000 | Wide content derives from narrow content and relationships with external things [Lewis] |
| 3114 | Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor] |
| 2999 | Obsession with narrow content leads to various sorts of hopeless anti-realism [Fodor] |
| 2486 | Content can't be causal role, because causal role is decided by content [Fodor] |
| 3012 | Do identical thoughts have identical causal roles? [Fodor] |
| 2452 | Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor] |
| 2432 | Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor] |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| 2492 | Experience can't explain itself; the concepts needed must originate outside experience [Fodor] |
| 11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence] |
| 6650 | Fodor is now less keen on the innateness of concepts [Fodor, by Lowe] |
| 12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
| 12618 | It is essential to the concept CAT that it be satisfied by cats [Fodor] |
| 12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
| 12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
| 12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
| 2438 | In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor] |
| 12614 | I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities [Fodor] |
| 2471 | Are concepts best seen as capacities? [Fodor] |
| 2472 | For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something [Fodor] |
| 12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
| 12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
| 12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
| 12621 | Definable concepts have constituents, which are necessary, individuate them, and demonstrate possession [Fodor] |
| 12622 | Many concepts lack prototypes, and complex prototypes aren't built from simple ones [Fodor] |
| 12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
| 12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
| 12623 | The theory theory can't actually tell us what concepts are [Fodor] |
| 12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
| 12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
| 8901 | Abstraction is usually explained either by example, or conflation, or abstraction, or negatively [Lewis] |
| 12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
| 8904 | The Way of Abstraction says an incomplete description of a concrete entity is the complete abstraction [Lewis] |
| 8938 | The Way of Example compares donkeys and numbers, but what is the difference, and what are numbers? [Lewis] |
| 8903 | Abstracta can be causal: sets can be causes or effects; there can be universal effects; events may be sets [Lewis] |
| 8902 | If abstractions are non-spatial, then both sets and universals seem to have locations [Lewis] |
| 8905 | If universals or tropes are parts of things, then abstraction picks out those parts [Lewis] |
| 8906 | If we can abstract the extrinsic relations and features of objects, abstraction isn't universals or tropes [Lewis] |
| 8907 | The abstract direction of a line is the equivalence class of it and all lines parallel to it [Lewis] |
| 8908 | For most sets, the concept of equivalence is too artificial to explain abstraction [Lewis] |
| 15443 | Mathematicians abstract by equivalence classes, but that doesn't turn a many into one [Lewis] |
| 16289 | We can't account for an abstraction as 'from' something if the something doesn't exist [Lewis] |
| 2439 | Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor] |
| 2457 | If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor] |
| 2998 | Grice thinks meaning is inherited from the propositional attitudes which sentences express [Fodor] |
| 2482 | It seems unlikely that meaning can be reduced to communicative intentions, or any mental states [Fodor] |
| 18418 | A theory of perspectival de se content gives truth conditions relative to an agent [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| 3006 | Whatever in the mind delivers falsehood is parasitic on what delivers truth [Fodor] |
| 2451 | To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor] |
| 3007 | Many different verification procedures can reach 'star', but it only has one semantic value [Fodor] |
| 3004 | The meaning of a sentence derives from its use in expressing an attitude [Fodor] |
| 3000 | Meaning holism is a crazy doctrine [Fodor] |
| 2433 | For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor] |
| 2477 | If to understand "fish" you must know facts about them, where does that end? [Fodor] |
| 16278 | A particular functional role is what gives content to a thought [Lewis] |
| 3003 | Very different mental states can share their contents, so content doesn't seem to be constructed from functional role [Fodor] |
| 12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
| 2996 | Mental states may have the same content but different extensions [Fodor] |
| 12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
| 12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
| 14215 | Causal theories of reference make errors in reference easy [Lewis] |
| 2436 | It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor] |
| 14209 | Descriptive theories remain part of the theory of reference (with seven mild modifications) [Lewis] |
| 2434 | Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor] |
| 12616 | English has no semantic theory, just associations between sentences and thoughts [Fodor] |
| 12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
| 12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
| 2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
| 8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
| 9654 | A proposition is a set of entire possible worlds which instantiate a particular property [Lewis] |
| 15736 | A proposition is the property of being a possible world where it holds true [Lewis] |
| 15738 | Propositions can't have syntactic structure if they are just sets of worlds [Lewis] |
| 2473 | Analysis is impossible without the analytic/synthetic distinction [Fodor] |
| 2484 | The theory of the content of thought as 'Mentalese' explains why the Private Language Argument doesn't work [Fodor] |
| 8614 | A sophisticated principle of charity sometimes imputes error as well as truth [Lewis] |
| 8615 | We need natural properties in order to motivate the principle of charity [Lewis] |
| 15539 | Basic to pragmatics is taking a message in a way that makes sense of it [Lewis] |
| 12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
| 8108 | Aesthetics presupposes a distinctive sort of experience, and a unified essence for art [Gardner] |
| 8112 | Art works originate in the artist's mind, and appreciation is re-creating this mental object [Gardner] |
| 8111 | Aesthetic objectivists must explain pleasure being essential, but not in the object [Gardner] |
| 8109 | Aesthetic judgements necessarily require first-hand experience, unlike moral judgements [Gardner] |
| 15562 | Causation is a general relation derived from instances of causal dependence [Lewis] |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| 8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
| 8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
| 8433 | There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich] |
| 10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
| 8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| 8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
| 17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
| 17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
| 8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
| 8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
| 8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
| 8608 | Counterfactuals 'backtrack' if a different present implies a different past [Lewis] |
| 8584 | Causal counterfactuals must avoid backtracking, to avoid epiphenomena and preemption [Lewis] |
| 9659 | Causation is when at the closest world without the cause, there is no effect either [Lewis] |
| 8581 | Physics discovers laws and causal explanations, and also the natural properties required [Lewis] |
| 15727 | Physics aims for a list of natural properties [Lewis] |
| 9409 | Laws are the best axiomatization of the total history of world events or facts [Lewis, by Mumford] |
| 9423 | If simplicity and strength are criteria for laws of nature, that introduces a subjective element [Mumford on Lewis] |
| 9424 | A number of systematizations might tie as the best and most coherent system [Mumford on Lewis] |
| 9419 | A law of nature is a general axiom of the deductive system that is best for simplicity and strength [Lewis] |
| 9425 | Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis] |
| 8611 | A law of nature is any regularity that earns inclusion in the ideal system [Lewis] |
| 3977 | Laws are true generalisations which support counterfactuals and are confirmed by instances [Fodor] |
| 4398 | An event causes another just if the second event would not have happened without the first [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
| 9426 | The world is just a vast mosaic of little matters of local particular fact [Lewis] |
| 9666 | It is quite implausible that the future is unreal, as that would terminate everything [Lewis] |
| 23019 | The interesting time travel is when personal and external time come apart [Lewis, by Baron/Miller] |
| 23021 | Lewis said it might just be that travellers to the past can't kill their grandfathers [Lewis, by Baron/Miller] |