39 ideas
22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
8472 | Sentential logic is consistent (no contradictions) and complete (entirely provable) [Orenstein] |
8476 | Axiomatization simply picks from among the true sentences a few to play a special role [Orenstein] |
8480 | S4: 'poss that poss that p' implies 'poss that p'; S5: 'poss that nec that p' implies 'nec that p' [Orenstein] |
8474 | Unlike elementary logic, set theory is not complete [Orenstein] |
8465 | Mereology has been exploited by some nominalists to achieve the effects of set theory [Orenstein] |
8452 | Traditionally, universal sentences had existential import, but were later treated as conditional claims [Orenstein] |
8475 | The substitution view of quantification says a sentence is true when there is a substitution instance [Orenstein] |
8454 | The whole numbers are 'natural'; 'rational' numbers include fractions; the 'reals' include root-2 etc. [Orenstein] |
8473 | The logicists held that is-a-member-of is a logical constant, making set theory part of logic [Orenstein] |
1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
8458 | Just individuals in Nominalism; add sets for Extensionalism; add properties, concepts etc for Intensionalism [Orenstein] |
7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
8457 | The Principle of Conservatism says we should violate the minimum number of background beliefs [Orenstein] |
22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
22652 | The mind has evolved entirely for practical interests, seen in our reflex actions [James] |
22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
8477 | People presume meanings exist because they confuse meaning and reference [Orenstein] |
8471 | Three ways for 'Socrates is human' to be true are nominalist, platonist, or Montague's way [Orenstein] |
8484 | If two people believe the same proposition, this implies the existence of propositions [Orenstein] |
1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |
22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |