Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Causal Explanation' and 'Mental Events'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


27 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 7. Chance
We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / f. Necessity in explanations
A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos]
To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
There are no rules linking thought and behaviour, because endless other thoughts intervene [Davidson]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 1. Reductionism critique
Reduction is impossible because mind is holistic and brain isn't [Davidson, by Maslin]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
Anomalous monism says nothing at all about the relationship between mental and physical [Davidson, by Kim]
Mind is outside science, because it is humanistic and partly normative [Davidson, by Lycan]
Anomalous monism says causes are events, so the mental and physical are identical, without identical properties [Davidson, by Crane]
If rule-following and reason are 'anomalies', does that make reductionism impossible? [Davidson, by Kim]
Davidson claims that mental must be physical, to make mental causation possible [Davidson, by Kim]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 3. Property Dualism
If mental causation is lawless, it is only possible if mental events have physical properties [Davidson, by Kim]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 5. Supervenience of mind
Supervenience of the mental means physical changes mental, and mental changes physical [Davidson]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
Davidson sees identity as between events, not states, since they are related in causation [Davidson, by Lowe]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
Multiple realisability was worse news for physicalism than anomalous monism was [Davidson, by Kim]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
Causation is either between events, or between descriptions of events [Davidson, by Maslin]
Whether an event is a causal explanation depends on how it is described [Davidson, by Maslin]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis]
We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]