56 ideas
| 4739 | In "if and only if" (iff), "if" expresses the sufficient condition, and "only if" the necessary condition [Engel] |
| 17651 | Without words or other symbols, we have no world [Goodman] |
| 17652 | Truth is irrelevant if no statements are involved [Goodman] |
| 4737 | Are truth-bearers propositions, or ideas/beliefs, or sentences/utterances? [Engel] |
| 4750 | The redundancy theory gets rid of facts, for 'it is a fact that p' just means 'p' [Engel] |
| 4744 | We can't explain the corresponding structure of the world except by referring to our thoughts [Engel] |
| 4738 | The coherence theory says truth is an internal relationship between groups of truth-bearers [Engel] |
| 4745 | Any coherent set of beliefs can be made more coherent by adding some false beliefs [Engel] |
| 4753 | Deflationism seems to block philosophers' main occupation, asking metatheoretical questions [Engel] |
| 4755 | Deflationism cannot explain why we hold beliefs for reasons [Engel] |
| 4751 | Maybe there is no more to be said about 'true' than there is about the function of 'and' in logic [Engel] |
| 15510 | Classes are a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities [Goodman] |
| 9920 | Two objects can apparently make up quite distinct arrangements in sets [Goodman, by Burgess/Rosen] |
| 10657 | The counties of Utah, and the state, and its acres, are in no way different [Goodman] |
| 12394 | If the result is bad, we change the rule; if we like the rule, we reject the result [Goodman] |
| 4752 | Deflationism must reduce bivalence ('p is true or false') to excluded middle ('p or not-p') [Engel] |
| 7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
| 17656 | Being primitive or prior always depends on a constructional system [Goodman] |
| 17661 | We don't recognise patterns - we invent them [Goodman] |
| 17659 | Reality is largely a matter of habit [Goodman] |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| 17654 | A world can be full of variety or not, depending on how we sort it [Goodman] |
| 14292 | Dispositions seem more ethereal than behaviour; a non-occult account of them would be nice [Goodman] |
| 7956 | If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
| 7957 | Without respects of resemblance, we would collect blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock together [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
| 7952 | If we apply the same word to different things, it is only because we are willing to do so [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
| 17653 | Things can only be judged the 'same' by citing some respect of sameness [Goodman] |
| 12191 | Counterfactuals are true if logical or natural laws imply the consequence [Goodman, by McFetridge] |
| 4762 | The Humean theory of motivation is that beliefs may be motivators as well as desires [Engel] |
| 4754 | Our beliefs are meant to fit the world (i.e. be true), where we want the world to fit our desires [Engel] |
| 4763 | 'Evidentialists' say, and 'voluntarists' deny, that we only believe on the basis of evidence [Engel] |
| 7510 | Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker] |
| 4746 | Pragmatism is better understood as a theory of belief than as a theory of truth [Engel] |
| 7513 | Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker] |
| 17660 | Discovery is often just finding a fit, like a jigsaw puzzle [Goodman] |
| 4764 | We cannot directly control our beliefs, but we can control the causes of our involuntary beliefs [Engel] |
| 17658 | Users of digital thermometers recognise no temperatures in the gaps [Goodman] |
| 17650 | We lack frames of reference to transform physics, biology and psychology into one another [Goodman] |
| 18749 | Goodman argued that the confirmation relation can never be formalised [Goodman, by Horsten/Pettigrew] |
| 17646 | Goodman showed that every sound inductive argument has an unsound one of the same form [Goodman, by Putnam] |
| 17655 | Grue and green won't be in the same world, as that would block induction entirely [Goodman] |
| 7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
| 4759 | Mental states as functions are second-order properties, realised by first-order physical properties [Engel] |
| 7511 | Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker] |
| 7512 | There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG] |
| 20440 | Art is a referential activity, hence indefinable, but it has a set of symptoms [Goodman] |
| 20439 | Artistic symbols are judged by the fruitfulness of their classifications [Goodman, by Giovannelli] |
| 8113 | Art is like understanding a natural language, and needs a grasp of a symbol system [Goodman, by Gardner] |
| 20438 | A performance is only an instance of a work if there is not a single error [Goodman] |
| 20437 | A copy only becomes an 'instance' of an artwork if there is a system of notation [Goodman] |
| 7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
| 17649 | If the world is one it has many aspects, and if there are many worlds they will collect into one [Goodman] |
| 4794 | We don't use laws to make predictions, we call things laws if we make predictions with them [Goodman] |
| 7516 | In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker] |
| 7515 | All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker] |
| 7514 | Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker] |