71 ideas
| 5196 | Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer] |
| 5189 | Philosophers should abandon speculation, as philosophy is wholly critical [Ayer] |
| 7919 | Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C] |
| 5195 | Critics say analysis can only show the parts, and not their distinctive configuration [Ayer] |
| 5179 | Philosophy deals with the questions that scientists do not wish to handle [Ayer] |
| 18405 | A 'teepee' argument has several mutually supporting planks to it [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 20320 | Truth is what unites, and the profound truths create a community [Jaspers] |
| 4749 | We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer] |
| 5202 | Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer] |
| 6523 | Positivists regard ontology as either meaningless or stipulated [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
| 5183 | Only tautologies can be certain; other propositions can only be probable [Ayer] |
| 6525 | Logical positivists could never give the sense-data equivalent of 'there is a table next door' [Robinson,H on Ayer] |
| 5170 | Material things are constructions from actual and possible occurrences of sense-contents [Ayer] |
| 5198 | We could verify 'a thing can't be in two places at once' by destroying one of the things [Ierubino on Ayer] |
| 2619 | Whether geometry can be applied to reality is an empirical question outside of geometry [Ayer] |
| 5197 | By changing definitions we could make 'a thing can't be in two places at once' a contradiction [Ayer] |
| 5204 | To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer] |
| 6524 | Positivists prefer sense-data to objects, because the vocabulary covers both illusions and perceptions [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
| 5193 | Causal and representative theories of perception are wrong as they refer to unobservables [Ayer] |
| 5200 | The main claim of rationalism is that thought is an independent source of knowledge [Ayer] |
| 4729 | Empiricism lacked a decent account of the a priori, until Ayer said it was entirely analytic [O'Grady on Ayer] |
| 5180 | All propositions (especially 'metaphysics') must begin with the senses [Ayer] |
| 5169 | My empiricism logically distinguishes analytic and synthetic propositions, and metaphysical verbiage [Ayer] |
| 5185 | It is further sense-experience which informs us of the mistakes that arise out of sense-experience [Ayer] |
| 5199 | Empiricism, it is said, cannot account for our knowledge of necessary truths [Ayer] |
| 5190 | The induction problem is to prove generalisations about the future based on the past [Ayer] |
| 5191 | We can't use the uniformity of nature to prove induction, as that would be circular [Ayer] |
| 5177 | Other minds are 'metaphysical' objects, because I can never observe their experiences [Ayer] |
| 5178 | A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer] |
| 5172 | If the self is meaningful, it must be constructed from sense-experiences [Ayer] |
| 5173 | Two experiences belong to one self if their contents belong with one body [Ayer] |
| 5176 | Empiricists can define personal identity as bodily identity, which consists of sense-contents [Ayer] |
| 18422 | Prioprioception focuses on your body parts, not on your self, or indexicality [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18425 | We can acquire self-knowledge with mirrors, not just with proprioception and introspection [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18421 | Proprioception is only immune from error if you are certain that it represents the agent [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 20323 | Freedom needs knowledge, the possibility of arbitrariness, and law [Jaspers] |
| 20322 | I am aware that freedom is possible, and the freedom is not in theory, but in seeking freedom [Jaspers] |
| 5171 | The supposed 'gulf' between mind and matter is based on the senseless concept of 'substances' [Ayer] |
| 18419 | Folk Functionalism is a Ramsification of our folk psychology [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18404 | It is assumed that indexical content is needed to represent the perspective of perception [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18426 | All information is objective, and purely indexical information is not much use [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18427 | If some of our thought is tied to its context, it will be hard to communicate it [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18428 | You don't remember your house interior just from an experienced viewpoint [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18429 | Our beliefs and desires are not organised around ourselves, but around the world [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18407 | Indexicality is not significantly connected to agency [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 5181 | A sentence is factually significant to someone if they know how to verify its proposition [Ayer] |
| 5184 | Factual propositions imply (in conjunction with a few other premises) possible experiences [Ayer] |
| 5186 | Tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions [Ayer] |
| 18413 | Fregeans can't agree on what 'senses' are [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18417 | Possible worlds accounts of content are notoriously coarse-grained [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18408 | Indexicals are just non-constant in meaning, and don't involve any special concepts [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18414 | Fregeans say 'I' differs in reference, so it must also differ in sense [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18423 | All indexicals can be expressed non-indexically [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18406 | The basic Kaplan view is that there is truth-conditional content, and contextual character [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18411 | It is proposed that a huge range of linguistic items are context-sensitive [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 18420 | We deny that action involves some special class of beliefs [Cappelen/Dever] |
| 20324 | My freedom increases as I broaden my vision of possiblities and motives [Jaspers] |
| 5205 | Moral intuition is worthless if there is no criterion to decide between intuitions [Ayer] |
| 23725 | Ayer defends the emotivist version of expressivism [Ayer, by Smith,M] |
| 5206 | To say an act is wrong makes no further statement about it, but merely expresses disapproval [Ayer] |
| 20318 | My helplessness in philosophising reveals my being, and begins its upsurge [Jaspers] |
| 20321 | The struggle for Existenz is between people who are equals, and are utterly honest [Jaspers] |
| 20325 | Once we grasp freedom 'from' things, then freedom 'for' things becomes urgent [Jaspers] |
| 20317 | Mundane existence is general, falling under universals, but Existens is unique to individuals [Jaspers] |
| 20315 | 'Existenz' is the potential being, which I could have, and ought to have [Jaspers] |
| 20319 | We want the correct grasp on being that is neither solipsism nor absorption in the crowd [Jaspers] |
| 20316 | Every decision I make moves towards or away from fulfilled Existenz [Jaspers] |
| 5208 | A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer] |
| 5187 | When we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists [Ayer] |
| 5207 | If theism is non-sensical, then so is atheism. [Ayer] |
| 5209 | The 'truths' expressed by theists are not literally significant [Ayer] |