88 ideas
| 22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
| 22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 22642 | Man has an intense natural interest in the consistency of his own thinking [James] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 6710 | You can only define a statement that something is 'true' by referring to its functional possibilities [James] |
| 18986 | Truth is just a name for verification-processes [James] |
| 18983 | In many cases there is no obvious way in which ideas can agree with their object [James] |
| 18972 | Ideas are true in so far as they co-ordinate our experiences [James] |
| 18973 | New opinions count as 'true' if they are assimilated to an individual's current beliefs [James] |
| 18984 | True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify (and false otherwise) [James] |
| 22305 | If the hypothesis of God is widely successful, it is true [James] |
| 14273 | Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington] |
| 22641 | Realities just are, and beliefs are true of them [James] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 14508 | A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM] |
| 14511 | There are cases where mere qualities would not ensure an intrinsic identity [Adams,RM] |
| 16463 | Adams says actual things have haecceities, but not things that only might exist [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker] |
| 18987 | A 'thing' is simply carved out of reality for human purposes [James] |
| 18981 | 'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James] |
| 12031 | Essences are taken to be qualitative properties [Adams,RM] |
| 12034 | If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM] |
| 14510 | Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM] |
| 16455 | Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM] |
| 12205 | There are two families of modal notions, metaphysical and epistemic, of equal strength [Edgington] |
| 12207 | Metaphysical possibility is discovered empirically, and is contrained by nature [Edgington] |
| 12206 | Broadly logical necessity (i.e. not necessarily formal logical necessity) is an epistemic notion [Edgington] |
| 12185 | Logical necessity is epistemic necessity, which is the old notion of a priori [Edgington, by McFetridge] |
| 12208 | An argument is only valid if it is epistemically (a priori) necessary [Edgington] |
| 13857 | Truth-functional possibilities include the irrelevant, which is a mistake [Edgington] |
| 14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington] |
| 14284 | Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington] |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| 13853 | It is a mistake to think that conditionals are statements about how the world is [Edgington] |
| 14270 | Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington] |
| 14269 | Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington] |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| 14275 | Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington] |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| 14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington] |
| 14276 | The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington] |
| 14290 | Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington] |
| 13855 | A conditional does not have truth conditions [Edgington] |
| 13859 | X believes 'if A, B' to the extent that A & B is more likely than A & ¬B [Edgington] |
| 14271 | Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington] |
| 14272 | I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington] |
| 13854 | Conditionals express what would be the outcome, given some supposition [Edgington] |
| 14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
| 14278 | Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington] |
| 14287 | Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington] |
| 14507 | Are possible worlds just qualities, or do they include primitive identities as well? [Adams,RM] |
| 11964 | Possible worlds are world-stories, maximal descriptions of whole non-existent worlds [Adams,RM, by Molnar] |
| 16451 | Adams says anti-haecceitism reduces all thisness to suchness [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker] |
| 11901 | Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P] |
| 14512 | Moderate Haecceitism says transworld identities are primitive, but connected to qualities [Adams,RM] |
| 18974 | Truth is a species of good, being whatever proves itself good in the way of belief [James] |
| 18989 | Pragmatism accepts any hypothesis which has useful consequences [James] |
| 22640 | We find satisfaction in consistency of all of our beliefs, perceptions and mental connections [James] |
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| 22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
| 18971 | Theories are practical tools for progress, not answers to enigmas [James] |
| 18985 | True thoughts are just valuable instruments of action [James] |
| 18982 | Pragmatism says all theories are instrumental - that is, mental modes of adaptation to reality [James] |
| 22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
| 22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
| 22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
| 22652 | The mind has evolved entirely for practical interests, seen in our reflex actions [James] |
| 22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
| 9286 | Consciousness is not a stuff, but is explained by the relations between experiences [James] |
| 9285 | 'Consciousness' is a nonentity, a mere echo of the disappearing 'soul' [James] |
| 23981 | Rage is inconceivable without bodily responses; so there are no disembodied emotions [James] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 18975 | We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences [James] |
| 12032 | Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 6570 | Imagine millions made happy on condition that one person suffers endless lonely torture [James] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 18980 | If there is a 'greatest knower', it doesn't follow that they know absolutely everything [James] |
| 18978 | It is hard to grasp a cosmic mind which produces such a mixture of goods and evils [James] |
| 18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
| 18977 | The wonderful design of a woodpecker looks diabolical to its victims [James] |
| 18979 | Things with parts always have some structure, so they always appear to be designed [James] |
| 18976 | Private experience is the main evidence for God [James] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |
| 18990 | Nirvana means safety from sense experience, and hindus and buddhists are just afraid of life [James] |