Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Nature of Things', 'fragments/reports' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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22 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]
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 7. Natural Sets
9406 A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
15730 Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 5. Natural Properties
15728 The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton]
9407 Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 4. Uninstantiated Universals
15729 Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / b. Individuation by properties
8520 An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 10. Impossibility
5998 From the necessity of the past we can infer the impossibility of what never happens [Diod.Cronus, by White,MJ]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
20832 The Master Argument seems to prove that only what will happen is possible [Diod.Cronus, by Epictetus]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
14304 Conditionals are true when the antecedent is true, and the consequent has to be true [Diod.Cronus]
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]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
6024 Thought is unambiguous, and you should stick to what the speaker thinks they are saying [Diod.Cronus, by Gellius]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]