56 ideas
10468 | A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver] |
10471 | Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver] |
10749 | Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
10750 | Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver] |
9065 | S5 collapses iterated modalities (◊□P→□P, and ◊◊P→◊P) [Keefe/Smith] |
7508 | Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker] |
9064 | Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith] |
9044 | If someone is borderline tall, no further information is likely to resolve the question [Keefe/Smith] |
9048 | The simplest approach, that vagueness is just ignorance, retains classical logic and semantics [Keefe/Smith] |
9055 | The epistemic view of vagueness must explain why we don't know the predicate boundary [Keefe/Smith] |
9049 | Supervaluationism keeps true-or-false where precision can be produced, but not otherwise [Keefe/Smith] |
9056 | Vague statements lack truth value if attempts to make them precise fail [Keefe/Smith] |
9058 | Some of the principles of classical logic still fail with supervaluationism [Keefe/Smith] |
9059 | The semantics of supervaluation (e.g. disjunction and quantification) is not classical [Keefe/Smith] |
9060 | Supervaluation misunderstands vagueness, treating it as a failure to make things precise [Keefe/Smith] |
9050 | A third truth-value at borderlines might be 'indeterminate', or a value somewhere between 0 and 1 [Keefe/Smith] |
9061 | People can't be placed in a precise order according to how 'nice' they are [Keefe/Smith] |
9062 | If truth-values for vagueness range from 0 to 1, there must be someone who is 'completely tall' [Keefe/Smith] |
9063 | How do we decide if my coat is red to degree 0.322 or 0.321? [Keefe/Smith] |
10747 | Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver] |
10748 | Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver] |
10719 | There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver] |
10721 | If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver] |
10716 | There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver] |
10720 | We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver] |
10714 | The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver] |
10715 | There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver] |
10738 | Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver] |
10739 | The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver] |
10740 | The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver] |
10741 | Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver] |
10742 | Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver] |
10472 | 'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver] |
10724 | Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver] |
7963 | Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver] |
10730 | If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver] |
10727 | Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver] |
7962 | Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver] |
10722 | Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver] |
10744 | Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver] |
10726 | Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver] |
10725 | Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver] |
9045 | Vague predicates involve uncertain properties, uncertain objects, and paradoxes of gradual change [Keefe/Smith] |
9047 | Many vague predicates are multi-dimensional; 'big' involves height and volume; heaps include arrangement [Keefe/Smith] |
9053 | If there is a precise borderline area, that is not a case of vagueness [Keefe/Smith] |
10745 | Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver] |
7510 | Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker] |
7513 | Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker] |
7509 | Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker] |
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] |
10746 | Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver] |
7505 | Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker] |
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] |