Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Steven Pinker, Scott Shalkowski and Anon (Par)

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22 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
7508 Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
14221 Serious essentialism says everything has essences, they're not things, and they ground necessities [Shalkowski]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
14222 Essences are what it is to be that (kind of) thing - in fact, they are the thing's identity [Shalkowski]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence
14226 We distinguish objects by their attributes, not by their essences [Shalkowski]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
14225 Critics say that essences are too mysterious to be known [Shalkowski]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
14223 De dicto necessity has linguistic entities as their source, so it is a type of de re necessity [Shalkowski]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
22142 In future, only logical limits can be placed on divine omnipotence [Anon (Par), by Boulter]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
9220 Lewis must specify that all possibilities are in his worlds, making the whole thing circular [Shalkowski, by Sider]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
7510 Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
7513 Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique
16716 It is heresy to require self-evident foundational principles in order to be certain [Anon (Par)]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
7509 Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
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]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 7. Extensional Semantics
14224 Equilateral and equiangular aren't the same, as we have to prove their connection [Shalkowski]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
7505 Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / d. Study of history
1866 It is heresy to teach that history repeats every 36,000 years [Anon (Par)]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
7516 In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
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]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
1865 It is heresy to teach that natural impossibilities cannot even be achieved by God [Anon (Par)]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
1864 It is heresy to teach that we can know God by his essence in this mortal life [Anon (Par)]