Ideas of Frank Jackson, by Theme

[Australian, b.1943, Professor at the Australian National University.]

green numbers give full details    |    back to list of philosophers    |     expand these ideas

---

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual

6979	Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis

6980	Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story

6983	Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis

14707

Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Schroeter]

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 4. Truthmaker Necessitarianism

7005	Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / d. Being makes truths

6994	Truth supervenes on being

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives

14352

'¬', '&', and 'v' are truth functions: the truth of the compound is fixed by the truth of the components

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction

6984	Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality

6978	Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties

6993	Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals

8499	Nominalists cannot translate 'red resembles pink more than blue' into particulars

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism

8500	Colour resemblance isn't just resemblance between things; 'colour' must be mentioned

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties

14633

How do we tell a table's being contingently plastic from its being essentially plastic?

14635

An x is essentially F if it is F in every possible world in which it appears

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

14632

Quine may have conflated de re and de dicto essentialism, but there is a real epistemological problem

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity

6987	We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / b. Types of conditional

14360

Possible worlds for subjunctives (and dispositions), and no-truth for indicatives?

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals

14288

'If A,B' affirms that A⊃B, and also that this wouldn't change if A were certain [Edgington]

13769

Conditionals are truth-functional, but should only be asserted when they are confident [Edgington]

13858

The truth-functional account of conditionals is right, if the antecedent is really acceptable [Edgington]

14289

There are some assertable conditionals one would reject if one learned the antecedent [Edgington]

14353

Modus ponens requires that A→B is F when A is T and B is F

14354

When A and B have the same truth value, A→B is true, because A→A is a logical truth

14355

(A&B)→A is a logical truth, even if antecedent false and consequent true, so it is T if A is F and B is T

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals

14358

In the possible worlds account of conditionals, modus ponens and modus tollens are validated

14359

Only assertions have truth-values, and conditionals are not proper assertions

14357

Possible worlds account, unlike A⊃B, says nothing about when A is false

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / f. Pragmatics of conditionals

14356

We can't insist that A is relevant to B, as conditionals can express lack of relevance

10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 3. A Posteriori Necessary

14631

How can you show the necessity of an a posteriori necessity, if it might turn out to be false?

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds

6988	Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds

6975	Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori

6982	Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / a. Qualities in perception

6991	We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia

4894	I say Mary does not have new knowledge, but knows an old fact in a new way [Perry]

4895	Is it unfair that physicalist knowledge can be written down, but dualist knowledge can't be [Perry]

4886	Mary knows all the physical facts of seeing red, but experiencing it is new knowledge

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind

6976	In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind

6986	Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori?

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability

6992	If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / c. Knowledge argument

7880	If a blind persons suddenly sees a kestrel, that doesn't make visual and theoretical kestrels different [Papineau]

7378	No one bothers to imagine what it would really be like to have ALL the physical information [Dennett]

7377	Mary learns when she sees colour, so her complete physical information had missed something

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology

6996	Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output

18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content

6977	Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so

18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth

6990	Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water'

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / c. Classical concepts

6985	Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates

6995	Successful predication supervenes on nature

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 6. Truth-Conditions Semantics

6989	I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions

20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 5. Action Dilemmas / c. Omissions

6998	Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory

6997	Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality

7000	Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.?

25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 3. Abortion

6999	It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide