428 ideas
9764 | Inspiration and social improvement need wisdom, but not professional philosophy [Quine] |
22070 | Irony is consciousness of abundant chaos [Schlegel,F] |
9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
9763 | For a good theory of the world, we must focus on our flabby foundational vocabulary [Quine] |
13736 | Quinean metaphysics just lists the beings, which is a domain with no internal structure [Schaffer,J on Quine] |
22069 | Plato has no system. Philosophy is the progression of a mind and development of thoughts [Schlegel,F] |
1627 | Any statement can be held true if we make enough adjustment to the rest of the system [Quine] |
22153 | Quine rejects Carnap's view that science and philosophy are distinct [Quine, by Boulter] |
22438 | Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine] |
6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
9184 | We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed [Williamson] |
8996 | If if time is money then if time is not money then time is money then if if if time is not money... [Quine] |
22436 | Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine] |
16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
6859 | Analytic philosophy has much higher standards of thinking than continental philosophy [Williamson] |
9023 | If you say that a contradiction is true, you change the meaning of 'not', and so change the subject [Quine] |
6564 | To affirm 'p and not-p' is to have mislearned 'and' or 'not' [Quine] |
22431 | Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine] |
8207 | The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine] |
8208 | In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine] |
1623 | Definition rests on synonymy, rather than explaining it [Quine] |
19048 | Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine] |
8995 | Definition by words is determinate but relative; fixing contexts could make it absolute [Quine] |
19047 | Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine] |
21699 | Russell offered a paraphrase of definite description, to avoid the commitment to objects [Quine] |
21697 | The Struthionic Fallacy is that of burying one's head in the sand [Quine] |
21616 | Truth and falsity apply to suppositions as well as to assertions [Williamson] |
21623 | True and false are not symmetrical; false is more complex, involving negation [Williamson] |
15134 | The truthmaker principle requires some specific named thing to make the difference [Williamson] |
15141 | Truthmaker is incompatible with modal semantics of varying domains [Williamson] |
15140 | The converse Barcan formula will not allow contingent truths to have truthmakers [Williamson] |
21750 | Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine] |
9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
9012 | Talk of 'truth' when sentences are mentioned; it reminds us that reality is the point of sentences [Quine] |
9011 | Truth is redundant for single sentences; we do better to simply speak the sentence [Quine] |
22435 | The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine] |
9013 | We can eliminate 'or' from our basic theory, by paraphrasing 'p or q' as 'not(not-p and not-q)' [Quine] |
10928 | Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine] |
5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
14626 | In S5 matters of possibility and necessity are non-contingent [Williamson] |
15131 | If metaphysical possibility is not a contingent matter, then S5 seems to suit it best [Williamson] |
22433 | It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine] |
15135 | If the domain of propositional quantification is constant, the Barcan formulas hold [Williamson] |
15130 | If a property is possible, there is something which can have it [Williamson] |
15139 | Converse Barcan: could something fail to meet a condition, if everything meets that condition? [Williamson] |
21602 | Many-valued logics don't solve vagueness; its presence at the meta-level is ignored [Williamson] |
6862 | Fuzzy logic uses a continuum of truth, but it implies contradictions [Williamson] |
3302 | Set theory is full of Platonist metaphysics, so Quine aimed to keep it separate from logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
9879 | NF has no models, but just blocks the comprehension axiom, to avoid contradictions [Quine, by Dummett] |
10211 | Quine wants V = L for a cleaner theory, despite the scepticism of most theorists [Quine, by Shapiro] |
21717 | Reducibility undermines type ramification, and is committed to the existence of functions [Quine, by Linsky,B] |
18170 | The Axiom of Reducibility is self-effacing: if true, it isn't needed [Quine] |
21695 | The set scheme discredited by paradoxes is actually the most natural one [Quine] |
21693 | Russell's antinomy challenged the idea that any condition can produce a set [Quine] |
3336 | Two things can never entail three things [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
9020 | My logical grammar has sentences by predication, then negation, conjunction, and existential quantification [Quine] |
13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
9028 | Maybe logical truth reflects reality, but in different ways in different languages [Quine] |
6858 | Formal logic struck me as exactly the language I wanted to think in [Williamson] |
9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
13639 | Quine says higher-order items are intensional, and lack a clearly defined identity relation [Quine, by Shapiro] |
8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
10014 | Quine rejects second-order logic, saying that predicates refer to multiple objects [Quine, by Hodes] |
10828 | Quantifying over predicates is treating them as names of entities [Quine] |
13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
21611 | Formal semantics defines validity as truth preserved in every model [Williamson] |
12219 | Whether a modal claim is true depends on how the object is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
22437 | Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine] |
10064 | Quine quickly dismisses If-thenism [Quine, by Musgrave] |
20296 | Logic needs general conventions, but that needs logic to apply them to individual cases [Quine, by Rey] |
8998 | Claims that logic and mathematics are conventional are either empty, uninteresting, or false [Quine] |
8999 | Logic isn't conventional, because logic is needed to infer logic from conventions [Quine] |
9000 | If a convention cannot be communicated until after its adoption, what is its role? [Quine] |
19043 | Bivalence applies not just to sentences, but that general terms are true or false of each object [Quine] |
21606 | 'Bivalence' is the meta-linguistic principle that 'A' in the object language is true or false [Williamson] |
9024 | Excluded middle has three different definitions [Quine] |
21605 | Excluded Middle is 'A or not A' in the object language [Williamson] |
10012 | Quantification theory can still be proved complete if we add identity [Quine] |
22434 | Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine] |
13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
12221 | 'Corner quotes' (quasi-quotation) designate 'whatever these terms designate' [Quine] |
21698 | All relations, apart from ancestrals, can be reduced to simpler logic [Quine] |
8453 | If we had to name objects to make existence claims, we couldn't discuss all the real numbers [Quine] |
10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
19321 | We might do without names, by converting them into predicates [Quine, by Kirkham] |
8455 | Canonical notation needs quantification, variables and predicates, but not names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8456 | Quine extended Russell's defining away of definite descriptions, to also define away names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
9204 | Quine's arguments fail because he naively conflates names with descriptions [Fine,K on Quine] |
9016 | Names are not essential, because naming can be turned into predication [Quine] |
1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
10926 | Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine] |
9015 | Universal quantification is widespread, but it is definable in terms of existential quantification [Quine] |
18492 | Not all quantification is either objectual or substitutional [Williamson] |
10922 | Objects are the values of variables, so a referentially opaque context cannot be quantified into [Quine] |
10311 | No sense can be made of quantification into opaque contexts [Quine, by Hale] |
10538 | Finite quantification can be eliminated in favour of disjunction and conjunction [Quine, by Dummett] |
10793 | Quine thought substitutional quantification confused use and mention, but then saw its nominalist appeal [Quine, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
10801 | Either reference really matters, or we don't need to replace it with substitutions [Quine] |
21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
9025 | You can't base quantification on substituting names for variables, if the irrationals cannot all be named [Quine] |
9026 | Some quantifications could be false substitutionally and true objectually, because of nameless objects [Quine] |
15136 | Substitutional quantification is metaphysical neutral, and equivalent to a disjunction of instances [Williamson] |
10705 | Putting a predicate letter in a quantifier is to make it the name of an entity [Quine] |
12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
15138 | Not all quantification is objectual or substitutional [Williamson] |
21612 | Or-elimination is 'Argument by Cases'; it shows how to derive C from 'A or B' [Williamson] |
9027 | A sentence is logically true if all sentences with that grammatical structure are true [Quine] |
21691 | Antinomies contradict accepted ways of reasoning, and demand revisions [Quine] |
21690 | Whenever the pursuer reaches the spot where the pursuer has been, the pursued has moved on [Quine] |
9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
21689 | A barber shaves only those who do not shave themselves. So does he shave himself? [Quine] |
21694 | Membership conditions which involve membership and non-membership are paradoxical [Quine] |
21692 | If we write it as '"this sentence is false" is false', there is no paradox [Quine] |
21599 | A sorites stops when it collides with an opposite sorites [Williamson] |
16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
8994 | If analytic geometry identifies figures with arithmetical relations, logicism can include geometry [Quine] |
17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
8997 | There are four different possible conventional accounts of geometry [Quine] |
8463 | Maths can be reduced to logic and set theory [Quine] |
8203 | All the arithmetical entities can be reduced to classes of integers, and hence to sets [Quine] |
10242 | I apply structuralism to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately [Quine] |
9183 | Platonism claims that some true assertions have singular terms denoting abstractions, so abstractions exist [Williamson] |
21696 | Nominalism rejects both attributes and classes (where extensionalism accepts the classes) [Quine] |
17738 | Quine blurs the difference between knowledge of arithmetic and of physics [Jenkins on Quine] |
9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
18198 | Mathematics is part of science; transfinite mathematics I take as mostly uninterpreted [Quine] |
8993 | If mathematics follows from definitions, then it is conventional, and part of logic [Quine] |
21557 | Russell confused use and mention, and reduced classes to properties, not to language [Quine, by Lackey] |
1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [Quine] |
9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
1635 | Mathematics reduces to set theory (which is a bit vague and unobvious), but not to logic proper [Quine] |
1616 | Formalism says maths is built of meaningless notations; these build into rules which have meaning [Quine] |
1615 | Intuitionism says classes are invented, and abstract entities are constructed from specified ingredients [Quine] |
8466 | For Quine, intuitionist ontology is inadequate for classical mathematics [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8467 | Intuitionists only admit numbers properly constructed, but classical maths covers all reals in a 'limit' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
1614 | Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made [Quine] |
10241 | For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro] |
16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
10243 | My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine] |
18438 | Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine] |
15137 | If 'fact' is a noun, can we name the fact that dogs bark 'Mary'? [Williamson] |
21589 | When bivalence is rejected because of vagueness, we lose classical logic [Williamson] |
21596 | Vagueness undermines the stable references needed by logic [Williamson] |
21601 | A vague term can refer to very precise elements [Williamson] |
21629 | Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson] |
9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
21591 | Vagueness is epistemic. Statements are true or false, but we often don't know which [Williamson] |
21619 | If a heap has a real boundary, omniscient speakers would agree where it is [Williamson] |
21620 | The epistemic view says that the essence of vagueness is ignorance [Williamson] |
21622 | If there is a true borderline of which we are ignorant, this drives a wedge between meaning and use [Williamson] |
9120 | Vagueness in a concept is its indiscriminability from other possible concepts [Williamson] |
6863 | Close to conceptual boundaries judgement is too unreliable to give knowledge [Williamson] |
19042 | Terms learned by ostension tend to be vague, because that must be quick and unrefined [Quine] |
21625 | The vagueness of 'heap' can remain even when the context is fixed [Williamson] |
21614 | The 'nihilist' view of vagueness says that 'heap' is not a legitimate concept [Williamson] |
21617 | We can say propositions are bivalent, but vague utterances don't express a proposition [Williamson] |
21618 | If the vague 'TW is thin' says nothing, what does 'TW is thin if his perfect twin is thin' say? [Williamson] |
21590 | Asking when someone is 'clearly' old is higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
21592 | Supervaluation keeps classical logic, but changes the truth in classical semantics [Williamson] |
21603 | You can't give a precise description of a language which is intrinsically vague [Williamson] |
21604 | Supervaluation assigns truth when all the facts are respected [Williamson] |
21607 | Supervaluation has excluded middle but not bivalence; 'A or not-A' is true, even when A is undecided [Williamson] |
21608 | Truth-functionality for compound statements fails in supervaluation [Williamson] |
21609 | Supervaluationism defines 'supertruth', but neglects it when defining 'valid' [Williamson] |
21610 | Supervaluation adds a 'definitely' operator to classical logic [Williamson] |
21613 | Supervaluationism cannot eliminate higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
19485 | Names have no ontological commitment, because we can deny that they name anything [Quine] |
10667 | A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack] |
1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
19486 | We can use quantification for commitment to unnameable things like the real numbers [Quine] |
5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
16021 | Quine says we can expand predicates easily (ideology), but not names (ontology) [Quine, by Noonan] |
16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
3325 | For Quine everything exists theoretically, as reference, predication and quantification [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
19492 | Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology [Yablo on Quine] |
14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
8461 | The category of objects incorporates the old distinction of substances and their modes [Quine] |
8534 | Quine says the predicate of a true statement has no ontological implications [Quine, by Armstrong] |
7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
10295 | Quine suggests that properties can be replaced with extensional entities like sets [Quine, by Shapiro] |
3322 | Quine says that if second-order logic is to quantify over properties, that can be done in first-order predicate logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
6078 | Quine brought classes into semantics to get rid of properties [Quine, by McGinn] |
9017 | Predicates are not names; predicates are the other parties to predication [Quine] |
8479 | Don't analyse 'red is a colour' as involving properties. Say 'all red things are coloured things' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
18439 | Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine] |
14296 | Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine] |
15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
3751 | Universals are acceptable if they are needed to make an accepted theory true [Quine, by Jacquette] |
21633 | Nominalists suspect that properties etc are our projections, and could have been different [Williamson] |
15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |
4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
7970 | Quine is committed to sets, but is more a Class Nominalist than a Platonist [Quine, by Macdonald,C] |
18442 | You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine] |
11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
1628 | If physical objects are a myth, they are useful for making sense of experience [Quine] |
8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
9018 | A physical object is the four-dimensional material content of a portion of space-time [Quine] |
13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
15783 | Definite descriptions can't unambiguously pick out an object which doesn't exist [Lycan on Quine] |
8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
18441 | No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine] |
6861 | What sort of logic is needed for vague concepts, and what sort of concept of truth? [Williamson] |
9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
21630 | If fuzzy edges are fine, then why not fuzzy temporal, modal or mereological boundaries? [Williamson] |
10923 | Aristotelian essentialism says a thing has some necessary and some non-necessary properties [Quine] |
10929 | Aristotelian essence of the object has become the modern essence of meaning [Quine] |
10930 | Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine] |
8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
9019 | Four-d objects helps predication of what no longer exists, and quantification over items from different times [Quine] |
21632 | A river is not just event; it needs actual and counterfactual boundaries [Williamson] |
17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
18440 | Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine] |
11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
14625 | Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson] |
10921 | Necessity can attach to statement-names, to statements, and to open sentences [Quine] |
14645 | To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine] |
12188 | Contrary to some claims, Quine does not deny logical necessity [Quine, by McFetridge] |
9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
9201 | Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
15090 | Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths [Quine, by Shoemaker] |
10927 | Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine] |
10924 | Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves [Quine] |
4577 | There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity [Quine] |
8206 | Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine] |
8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
15782 | Quine wants identity and individuation-conditions for possibilia [Quine, by Lycan] |
14623 | Strict conditionals imply counterfactual conditionals: □(A⊃B)⊃(A□→B) [Williamson] |
9014 | Some conditionals can be explained just by negation and conjunction: not(p and not-q) [Quine] |
15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
22432 | Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine] |
15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
14624 | Counterfactual conditionals transmit possibility: (A□→B)⊃(◊A⊃◊B) [Williamson] |
14531 | Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A] |
21621 | We can't infer metaphysical necessities to be a priori knowable - or indeed knowable in any way [Williamson] |
9598 | Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson] |
2796 | For Quine the only way to know a necessity is empirically [Quine, by Dancy,J] |
8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
16536 | Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson] |
9596 | We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson] |
13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
9203 | We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K] |
13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
15142 | Our ability to count objects across possibilities favours the Barcan formulas [Williamson] |
18925 | If talking donkeys are possible, something exists which could be a talking donkey [Williamson, by Cameron] |
21627 | We have inexact knowledge when we include margins of error [Williamson] |
13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
4760 | Belief aims at knowledge (rather than truth), and mere believing is a kind of botched knowing [Williamson] |
18969 | How do you distinguish three beliefs from four beliefs or two beliefs? [Quine] |
19527 | We don't acquire evidence and then derive some knowledge, because evidence IS knowledge [Williamson] |
19512 | Don't analyse knowledge; use knowledge to analyse other concepts in epistemology [Williamson, by DeRose] |
19528 | Knowledge is prior to believing, just as doing is prior to trying to do [Williamson] |
19529 | Belief explains justification, and knowledge explains belief, so knowledge explains justification [Williamson] |
19530 | A neutral state of experience, between error and knowledge, is not basic; the successful state is basic [Williamson] |
19531 | Internalism about mind is an obsolete view, and knowledge-first epistemology develops externalism [Williamson] |
19536 | Knowledge-first says your total evidence IS your knowledge [Williamson] |
19526 | Surely I am acquainted with physical objects, not with appearances? [Williamson] |
18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
22068 | Poetry is transcendental when it connects the ideal to the real [Schlegel,F] |
9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
9379 | A sentence is obvious if it is true, and any speaker of the language will instantly agree to it [Quine] |
9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
9383 | Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine] |
12424 | Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher] |
9338 | Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine] |
9337 | Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich] |
9340 | Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine] |
6860 | How can one discriminate yellow from red, but not the colours in between? [Williamson] |
21686 | Sense-data are dubious abstractions, with none of the plausibility of tables [Quine] |
1620 | Empiricism makes a basic distinction between truths based or not based on facts [Quine] |
8450 | Quine's empiricism is based on whole theoretical systems, not on single mental events [Quine, by Orenstein] |
19046 | Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine] |
19049 | In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine] |
1629 | Our outer beliefs must match experience, and our inner ones must be simple [Quine] |
21685 | Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine] |
19488 | The second dogma is linking every statement to some determinate observations [Quine, by Yablo] |
9592 | Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson] |
20181 | When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson] |
21626 | Knowing you know (KK) is usually denied if the knowledge concept is missing, or not considered [Williamson] |
7627 | You can't reduce epistemology to psychology, because that presupposes epistemology [Maund on Quine] |
8871 | We should abandon a search for justification or foundations, and focus on how knowledge is acquired [Quine, by Davidson] |
8826 | If we abandon justification and normativity in epistemology, we must also abandon knowledge [Kim on Quine] |
8827 | Without normativity, naturalized epistemology isn't even about beliefs [Kim on Quine] |
8899 | Epistemology is a part of psychology, studying how our theories relate to our evidence [Quine] |
3868 | To proclaim cultural relativism is to thereby rise above it [Quine, by Newton-Smith] |
1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
21687 | It seems obvious to prefer the simpler of two theories, on grounds of beauty and convenience [Quine] |
21688 | There are four suspicious reasons why we prefer simpler theories [Quine] |
4713 | For Quine, theories are instruments used to make predictions about observations [Quine, by O'Grady] |
1625 | Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body [Quine] |
16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
21748 | More careful inductions gradually lead to the hypothetico-deductive method [Quine] |
16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
14628 | Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson] |
16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
8462 | A hallucination can, like an ague, be identified with its host; the ontology is physical, the idiom mental [Quine] |
21631 | To know, believe, hope or fear, one must grasp the thought, but not when you fail to do them [Williamson] |
21600 | 'Blue' is not a family resemblance, because all the blues resemble in some respect [Williamson] |
11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |
1626 | It is troublesome nonsense to split statements into a linguistic and a factual component [Quine] |
8898 | Inculcations of meanings of words rests ultimately on sensory evidence [Quine] |
22430 | If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine] |
9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
21700 | Taking sentences as the unit of meaning makes useful paraphrasing possible [Quine] |
21701 | Knowing a word is knowing the meanings of sentences which contain it [Quine] |
1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
7317 | 'Renate' and 'cordate' have identical extensions, but are not synonymous [Quine, by Miller,A] |
9009 | Single words are strongly synonymous if their interchange preserves truth [Quine] |
1621 | Once meaning and reference are separated, meaning ceases to seem important [Quine] |
9471 | Intensions are creatures of darkness which should be exorcised [Quine] |
8202 | Meaning is essence divorced from things and wedded to words [Quine] |
1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
4712 | Quine says there is no matter of fact about reference - it is 'inscrutable' [Quine, by O'Grady] |
8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
21615 | References to the 'greatest prime number' have no reference, but are meaningful [Williamson] |
15788 | Syntax and semantics are indeterminate, and modern 'semantics' is a bogus subject [Quine, by Lycan] |
18038 | The 't' and 'f' of formal semantics has no philosophical interest, and may not refer to true and false [Williamson] |
19534 | How does inferentialism distinguish the patterns of inference that are essential to meaning? [Williamson] |
19535 | Internalist inferentialism has trouble explaining how meaning and reference relate [Williamson] |
19533 | Inferentialist semantics relies on internal inference relations, not on external references [Williamson] |
19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
19532 | Truth-conditional referential semantics is externalist, referring to worldly items [Williamson] |
18967 | A 'proposition' is said to be the timeless cognitive part of the meaning of a sentence [Quine] |
21624 | It is known that there is a cognitive loss in identifying propositions with possible worlds [Williamson] |
19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
18968 | The problem with propositions is their individuation. When do two sentences express one proposition? [Quine] |
9007 | It makes no sense to say that two sentences express the same proposition [Quine] |
9008 | There is no rule for separating the information from other features of sentences [Quine] |
9010 | We can abandon propositions, and just talk of sentences and equivalence [Quine] |
9371 | Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine] |
19487 | Without the analytic/synthetic distinction, Carnap's ontology/empirical distinction collapses [Quine] |
1622 | Did someone ever actually define 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man'? [Quine] |
9366 | Quine's attack on analyticity undermined linguistic views of necessity, and analytic views of the a priori [Quine, by Boghossian] |
14473 | Quine attacks the Fregean idea that we can define analyticity through synonyous substitution [Quine, by Thomasson] |
7321 | The last two parts of 'Two Dogmas' are much the best [Miller,A on Quine] |
8803 | Erasing the analytic/synthetic distinction got rid of meanings, and saved philosophy of language [Davidson on Quine] |
17737 | The analytic needs excessively small units of meaning and empirical confirmation [Quine, by Jenkins] |
1624 | If we try to define analyticity by synonymy, that leads back to analyticity [Quine] |
8900 | In observation sentences, we could substitute community acceptance for analyticity [Quine] |
8201 | The distinction between meaning and further information is as vague as the essence/accident distinction [Quine] |
19050 | Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine] |
21338 | I will even consider changing a meaning to save a law; I question the meaning-fact cleavage [Quine] |
9021 | A good way of explaining an expression is saying what conditions make its contexts true [Quine] |
19045 | Translation is too flimsy a notion to support theories of cultural incommensurability [Quine] |
3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |
18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |
6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
7330 | The principle of charity only applies to the logical constants [Quine, by Miller,A] |
22030 | For poets free choice is supreme [Schlegel,F] |
21749 | Altruistic values concern other persons, and ceremonial values concern practices [Quine] |
21751 | Love seems to diminish with distance from oneself [Quine] |
22071 | True love is ironic, in the contrast between finite limitations and the infinity of love [Schlegel,F] |
22029 | Irony is the response to conflicts of involvement and attachment [Schlegel,F, by Pinkard] |
9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
10370 | Causal relata are individuated by coarse spacetime regions [Quine, by Schaffer,J] |
16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
17862 | Essence gives an illusion of understanding [Quine, by Almog] |
10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |
18970 | The concept of a 'point' makes no sense without the idea of absolute position [Quine] |
13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
15133 | A thing can't be the only necessary existent, because its singleton set would be as well [Williamson] |