94 ideas
| 14888 | Wisdom prevents us from being ruled by the moment [Nietzsche] |
| 14863 | Unlike science, true wisdom involves good taste [Nietzsche] |
| 14890 | Suffering is the meaning of existence [Nietzsche] |
| 14861 | Philosophy ennobles the world, by producing an artistic conception of our knowledge [Nietzsche] |
| 14885 | The first aim of a philosopher is a life, not some works [Nietzsche] |
| 14887 | You should only develop a philosophy if you are willing to live by it [Nietzsche] |
| 14889 | Philosophy is pointless if it does not advocate, and live, a new way of life [Nietzsche] |
| 14862 | Philosophy is more valuable than much of science, because of its beauty [Nietzsche] |
| 14878 | It would better if there was no thought [Nietzsche] |
| 14881 | Why do people want philosophers? [Nietzsche] |
| 14876 | Philosophy is always secondary, because it cannot support a popular culture [Nietzsche] |
| 14860 | Kant has undermined our belief in metaphysics [Nietzsche] |
| 14859 | If philosophy controls science, then it has to determine its scope, and its value [Nietzsche] |
| 16841 | Good inference has mechanism, precision, scope, simplicity, fertility and background fit [Lipton] |
| 16854 | Contrary pairs entail contradictions; one member entails negation of the other [Lipton] |
| 14880 | Logic is just slavery to language [Nietzsche] |
| 10061 | The If-thenist view only seems to work for the axiomatised portions of mathematics [Musgrave] |
| 10065 | Perhaps If-thenism survives in mathematics if we stick to first-order logic [Musgrave] |
| 10049 | Logical truths may contain non-logical notions, as in 'all men are men' [Musgrave] |
| 10050 | A statement is logically true if it comes out true in all interpretations in all (non-empty) domains [Musgrave] |
| 10058 | No two numbers having the same successor relies on the Axiom of Infinity [Musgrave] |
| 10062 | Formalism seems to exclude all creative, growing mathematics [Musgrave] |
| 10063 | Formalism is a bulwark of logical positivism [Musgrave] |
| 14869 | If some sort of experience is at the root of matter, then human knowledge is close to its essence [Nietzsche] |
| 16814 | Understanding is not mysterious - it is just more knowledge, of causes [Lipton] |
| 14875 | Belief matters more than knowledge, and only begins when knowledge ceases [Nietzsche] |
| 14866 | It always remains possible that the world just is the way it appears [Nietzsche] |
| 16825 | How do we distinguish negative from irrelevant evidence, if both match the hypothesis? [Lipton] |
| 14872 | Our knowledge is illogical, because it rests on false identities between things [Nietzsche] |
| 14879 | The most extreme scepticism is when you even give up logic [Nietzsche] |
| 16851 | The inference to observables and unobservables is almost the same, so why distinguish them? [Lipton] |
| 16799 | Inductive inference is not proof, but weighing evidence and probability [Lipton] |
| 16798 | We infer from evidence by working out what would explain that evidence [Lipton] |
| 16856 | It is more impressive that relativity predicted Mercury's orbit than if it had accommodated it [Lipton] |
| 16857 | Predictions are best for finding explanations, because mere accommodations can be fudged [Lipton] |
| 16827 | If we make a hypothesis about data, then a deduction, where does the hypothesis come from? [Lipton] |
| 16804 | Induction is repetition, instances, deduction, probability or causation [Lipton] |
| 16823 | Standard induction does not allow for vertical inferences, to some unobservable lower level [Lipton] |
| 16800 | An inductive inference is underdetermined, by definition [Lipton] |
| 16858 | We can argue to support our beliefs, so induction will support induction, for believers in induction [Lipton] |
| 16832 | If something in ravens makes them black, it may be essential (definitive of ravens) [Lipton] |
| 16836 | My shoes are not white because they lack some black essence of ravens [Lipton] |
| 16831 | A theory may explain the blackness of a raven, but say nothing about the whiteness of shoes [Lipton] |
| 16833 | We can't turn non-black non-ravens into ravens, to test the theory [Lipton] |
| 16834 | To pick a suitable contrast to ravens, we need a hypothesis about their genes [Lipton] |
| 16801 | A hypothesis is confirmed if an unlikely prediction comes true [Lipton] |
| 16837 | Bayes involves 'prior' probabilities, 'likelihood', 'posterior' probability, and 'conditionalising' [Lipton] |
| 16839 | Explanation may be an important part of implementing Bayes's Theorem [Lipton] |
| 16802 | Bayes seems to rule out prior evidence, since that has a probability of one [Lipton] |
| 16803 | Bayes is too liberal, since any logical consequence of a hypothesis confirms it [Lipton] |
| 16850 | Explanation may describe induction, but may not show how it justifies, or leads to truth [Lipton] |
| 16807 | An explanation gives the reason the phenomenon occurred [Lipton] |
| 16808 | An explanation is what makes the unfamiliar familiar to us [Lipton] |
| 16806 | An explanation is what is added to knowledge to yield understanding [Lipton] |
| 16822 | Seaching for explanations is a good way to discover the structure of the world [Lipton] |
| 16816 | In 'contrastive' explanation there is a fact and a foil - why that fact, rather than this foil? [Lipton] |
| 16826 | With too many causes, find a suitable 'foil' for contrast, and the field narrows right down [Lipton] |
| 16811 | An explanation unifies a phenomenon with our account of other phenomena [Lipton] |
| 16810 | Deduction explanation is too easy; any law at all will imply the facts - together with the facts! [Lipton] |
| 16829 | We reject deductive explanations if they don't explain, not if the deduction is bad [Lipton] |
| 16809 | Good explanations may involve no laws and no deductions [Lipton] |
| 16812 | An explanation shows why it was necessary that the effect occurred [Lipton] |
| 16846 | A cause may not be an explanation [Lipton] |
| 16813 | To explain is to give either the causal history, or the causal mechanism [Lipton] |
| 16815 | Mathematical and philosophical explanations are not causal [Lipton] |
| 16849 | Explanations may be easier to find than causes [Lipton] |
| 16848 | Causal inferences are clearest when we can manipulate things [Lipton] |
| 16842 | We want to know not just the cause, but how the cause operated [Lipton] |
| 16840 | To maximise probability, don't go beyond your data [Lipton] |
| 16824 | Is Inference to the Best Explanation nothing more than inferring the likeliest cause? [Lipton] |
| 16817 | Best Explanation as a guide to inference is preferable to best standard explanations [Lipton] |
| 16818 | The 'likeliest' explanation is the best supported; the 'loveliest' gives the most understanding [Lipton] |
| 16819 | IBE is inferring that the best potential explanation is the actual explanation [Lipton] |
| 16820 | Finding the 'loveliest' potential explanation links truth to understanding [Lipton] |
| 16828 | IBE is not passive treatment of data, but involves feedback between theory and data search [Lipton] |
| 16844 | A contrasting difference is the cause if it offers the best explanation [Lipton] |
| 16853 | We select possible explanations for explanatory reasons, as well as choosing among them [Lipton] |
| 14873 | If we find a hypothesis that explains many things, we conclude that it explains everything [Nietzsche] |
| 16821 | Must we only have one explanation, and must all the data be made relevant? [Lipton] |
| 16838 | Bayesians say best explanations build up an incoherent overall position [Lipton] |
| 16855 | The best theory is boring: compare 'all planets move elliptically' with 'most of them do' [Lipton] |
| 16852 | Best explanation can't be a guide to truth, because the truth must precede explanation [Lipton] |
| 14868 | Our primary faculty is perception of structure, as when looking in a mirror [Nietzsche] |
| 14870 | We experience causation between willing and acting, and thereby explain conjunctions of changes [Nietzsche] |
| 14867 | It is just madness to think that the mind is supernatural (or even divine!) [Nietzsche] |
| 10060 | Logical positivists adopted an If-thenist version of logicism about numbers [Musgrave] |
| 14884 | The shortest path to happiness is forgetfulness, the path of animals (but of little value) [Nietzsche] |
| 14886 | Education is contrary to human nature [Nietzsche] |
| 14883 | We should evaluate the past morally [Nietzsche] |
| 14882 | Protest against vivisection - living things should not become objects of scientific investigation [Nietzsche] |
| 14865 | We do not know the nature of one single causality [Nietzsche] |
| 16847 | Counterfactual causation makes causes necessary but not sufficient [Lipton] |
| 14871 | Laws of nature are merely complex networks of relations [Nietzsche] |
| 14864 | The Greeks lack a normative theology: each person has their own poetic view of things [Nietzsche] |