34 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] |
22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
11984 | Asserting a possible property is to say it would have had the property if that world had been actual [Plantinga] |
11980 | A possible world is a maximal possible state of affairs [Plantinga] |
11982 | If possible Socrates differs from actual Socrates, the Indiscernibility of Identicals says they are different [Plantinga] |
11983 | It doesn't matter that we can't identify the possible Socrates; we can't identify adults from baby photos [Plantinga] |
11985 | If individuals can only exist in one world, then they can never lack any of their properties [Plantinga] |
11986 | The counterparts of Socrates have self-identity, but only the actual Socrates has identity-with-Socrates [Plantinga] |
11987 | Counterpart Theory absurdly says I would be someone else if things went differently [Plantinga] |
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] |
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] |
22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
8337 | Some says mental causation is distinct because we can recognise single occurrences [Mackie] |
8342 | Mackie tries to analyse singular causal statements, but his entities are too vague for events [Kim on Mackie] |
8343 | Necessity and sufficiency are best suited to properties and generic events, not individual events [Kim on Mackie] |
8385 | A cause is part of a wider set of conditions which suffices for its effect [Mackie, by Crane] |
8335 | Necessary conditions are like counterfactuals, and sufficient conditions are like factual conditionals [Mackie] |
8336 | The INUS account interprets single events, and sequences, causally, without laws being known [Mackie] |
22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
8333 | A cause is an Insufficient but Necessary part of an Unnecessary but Sufficient condition [Mackie] |
8395 | Mackie has a nomological account of general causes, and a subjunctive conditional account of single ones [Mackie, by Tooley] |
8334 | The virus causes yellow fever, and is 'the' cause; sweets cause tooth decay, but they are not 'the' cause [Mackie] |
22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |