7 ideas
| 14296 | Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Each disposition, in my view, is a physical state or mechanism. ...In some cases nowadays we understand the physical details and set them forth explicitly in terms of the arrangement and interaction of small bodies. This replaces the old disposition. | |
| From: Willard Quine (The Roots of Reference [1990], p.11), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 01.3 | |
| A reaction: A challenge to the dispositions and powers view of nature, one which rests on the 'categorical' structural properties, rather than the 'hypothetical' dispositions. But can we define a mechanism without mentioning its powers? |
| 13856 | Conditionals are truth-functional, but we must take care with misleading ones [Grice, by Edgington] |
| Full Idea: Grice argued that the truth-functional account of conditionals can withstand objections, provided that we are careful to distinguish the false from the misleadingly true. | |
| From: report of H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Dorothy Edgington - Do Conditionals Have Truth Conditions? 2 |
| 8948 | The odd truth table for material conditionals is explained by conversational conventions [Grice, by Fisher] |
| Full Idea: According to Grice, it is the rules that govern conversation beyond the merely logical that account for the counter-intuitiveness of the truth table for the material conditional. | |
| From: report of H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Jennifer Fisher - On the Philosophy of Logic 8.I | |
| A reaction: There is a conversational rule which says that replies should normally relevant to context. It would be nice if logical implications were also relevant to context. |
| 13767 | Conditionals might remain truth-functional, despite inappropriate conversational remarks [Edgington on Grice] |
| Full Idea: Grice defended the truth-functional account of conditionals, noting the gap between what we are justified in believing and what is appropriate to say. .But the problem arises at the level of belief, not at the level of inappropriate conversational remarks | |
| From: comment on H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals 17.1.3 |
| 14277 | A person can be justified in believing a proposition, though it is unreasonable to actually say it [Grice, by Edgington] |
| Full Idea: Grice drew attention to situations in which a person is justified in believing a proposition, which would nevertheless by an unreasonable thing for the person to say, in normal circumstances. I think he is right about disjunction and negated conjunctions. | |
| From: report of H. Paul Grice (Logic and Conversation [1975]) by Dorothy Edgington - Conditionals (Stanf) 2.4 | |
| A reaction: Edgington considers Grice's ideas of implicature as of permanent value, especially as a clarification of 1950s ordinary language philosophy. |
| 2799 | Bayes' theorem explains why very surprising predictions have a higher value as evidence [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Bayesianism can explain the fact that in science surprising predictions have greater evidential value, as the equation produces a higher degree of confirmation. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Bayesianism [1992], p.42) |
| 2798 | Probability of H, given evidence E, is prob(H) x prob(E given H) / prob(E) [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Bayesianism says ideally rational people should have degrees of belief (not all-or-nothing beliefs), corresponding with probability theory. Probability of H, given evidence E, is prob(H) X prob(E given H) / prob(E). | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Bayesianism [1992], p.41) |