Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Phenomenalism', 'Nature Without Essence' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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26 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
17070 Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
17072 We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 6. Compactness
17867 If a concept is not compact, it will not be presentable to finite minds [Almog]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / d. Natural numbers
17877 The number series is primitive, not the result of some set theoretic axioms [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
17872 Definitionalists rely on snapshot-concepts, instead of on the real processes [Almog]
17871 Fregean meanings are analogous to conceptual essence, defining a kind [Almog]
17866 Essential definition aims at existence conditions and structural truths [Almog]
17868 Surface accounts aren't exhaustive as they always allow unintended twin cases [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 10. Essence as Species
17870 Alien 'tigers' can't be tigers if they are not related to our tigers [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence
17869 Kripke and Putnam offer an intermediary between real and nominal essences [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
17876 Individual essences are just cobbled together classificatory predicates [Almog]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
2614 Modern phenomenalism holds that objects are logical constructions out of sense-data [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
2615 The concept of sense-data allows us to discuss appearances without worrying about reality [Ayer]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
17073 I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
17077 The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
17078 Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
17061 Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
17074 Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
17076 Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
17071 An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
17062 If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
17075 Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
17873 Water must be related to water, just as tigers must be related to tigers [Almog]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
17864 Defining an essence comes no where near giving a thing's nature [Almog]
17863 Essences promise to reveal reality, but actually drive us away from it [Almog]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]