Ideas from 'Philosophical Insignificance of A Priori Knowledge' by David Papineau [2010], by Theme Structure

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1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism

13407

All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems

13409

Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts

13406

A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant

12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition

13408

Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification

13410

Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept