74 ideas
| 11051 | Frege's logical approach dominates the analytical tradition [Hanna] |
| 3870 | The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith] |
| 3859 | We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith] |
| 3853 | For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith] |
| 3854 | Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith] |
| 3855 | Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith] |
| 11054 | Scientism says most knowledge comes from the exact sciences [Hanna] |
| 11070 | 'Denying the antecedent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ¬φ, so ¬ψ [Hanna] |
| 11071 | 'Affirming the consequent' fallacy: φ→ψ, ψ, so φ [Hanna] |
| 11088 | We can list at least fourteen informal fallacies [Hanna] |
| 11059 | Circular arguments are formally valid, though informally inadmissible [Hanna] |
| 11089 | Formally, composition and division fallacies occur in mereology [Hanna] |
| 3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
| 3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
| 11058 | Logic is explanatorily and ontologically dependent on rational animals [Hanna] |
| 11072 | Logic is personal and variable, but it has a universal core [Hanna] |
| 11061 | Intensional consequence is based on the content of the concepts [Hanna] |
| 11063 | Logicism struggles because there is no decent theory of analyticity [Hanna] |
| 11055 | Supervenience can add covariation, upward dependence, and nomological connection [Hanna] |
| 11083 | A sentence is necessary if it is true in a set of worlds, and nonfalse in the other worlds [Hanna] |
| 11086 | Metaphysical necessity can be 'weak' (same as logical) and 'strong' (based on essences) [Hanna] |
| 11084 | Logical necessity is truth in all logically possible worlds, because of laws and concepts [Hanna] |
| 11085 | Nomological necessity is truth in all logically possible worlds with our laws [Hanna] |
| 3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
| 13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
| 13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
| 3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
| 11077 | Intuition includes apriority, clarity, modality, authority, fallibility and no inferences [Hanna] |
| 11080 | Intuition is more like memory, imagination or understanding, than like perception [Hanna] |
| 11078 | Intuition is only outside the 'space of reasons' if all reasons are inferential [Hanna] |
| 3857 | Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith] |
| 3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
| 13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
| 3862 | All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith] |
| 3863 | The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith] |
| 3864 | Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith] |
| 3865 | Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith] |
| 13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
| 3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
| 13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
| 13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
| 13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
| 14366 | An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens] |
| 13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
| 13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
| 13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
| 13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
| 13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
| 13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
| 13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
| 17093 | Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon] |
| 17492 | Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon] |
| 13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
| 13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
| 13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
| 16557 | Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Salmon, by Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
| 11053 | Explanatory reduction is stronger than ontological reduction [Hanna] |
| 13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
| 13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
| 13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
| 11081 | Imagination grasps abstracta, generates images, and has its own correctness conditions [Hanna] |
| 11082 | Should we take the 'depictivist' or the 'descriptivist/propositionalist' view of mental imagery? [Hanna] |
| 11067 | Rational animals have a normative concept of necessity [Hanna] |
| 11068 | One tradition says talking is the essence of rationality; the other says the essence is logic [Hanna] |
| 11047 | Hegelian holistic rationality is the capacity to seek coherence [Hanna] |
| 11048 | Humean Instrumental rationality is the capacity to seek contingent truths [Hanna] |
| 11046 | Kantian principled rationality is recognition of a priori universal truths [Hanna] |
| 11045 | Most psychologists are now cognitivists [Hanna] |
| 3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
| 8412 | A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon] |
| 8413 | Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon] |
| 8411 | Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation [Salmon] |
| 4784 | Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos] |
| 8409 | Probabilistic causal concepts are widely used in everyday life and in science [Salmon] |