58 ideas
12644 | Who cares what 'philosophy' is? Most pre-1950 thought doesn't now count as philosophy [Fodor] |
12633 | Definitions often give necessary but not sufficient conditions for an extension [Fodor] |
16477 | Asserting not-p is saying p is false [Russell] |
16484 | There are four experiences that lead us to talk of 'some' things [Russell] |
16486 | The physical world doesn't need logic, but the mental world does [Russell] |
2947 | Questions wouldn't lead anywhere without the law of excluded middle [Russell] |
12664 | A truth-table, not inferential role, defines 'and' [Fodor] |
16479 | 'Or' expresses hesitation, in a dog at a crossroads, or birds risking grabbing crumbs [Russell] |
16481 | 'Or' expresses a mental state, not something about the world [Russell] |
16487 | Maybe the 'or' used to describe mental states is not the 'or' of logic [Russell] |
16480 | A disjunction expresses indecision [Russell] |
16483 | Disjunction may also arise in practice if there is imperfect memory. [Russell] |
12648 | Names in thought afford a primitive way to bring John before the mind [Fodor] |
12650 | 'Paderewski' has two names in mentalese, for his pianist file and his politician file [Fodor] |
12656 | P-and-Q gets its truth from the truth of P and truth of Q, but consistency isn't like that [Fodor] |
16475 | A 'heterological' predicate can't be predicated of itself; so is 'heterological' heterological? Yes=no! [Russell] |
12653 | There's statistical, logical, nomological, conceptual and metaphysical possibility [Fodor] |
16482 | All our knowledge (if verbal) is general, because all sentences contain general words [Russell] |
12651 | Some beliefs are only inferred when needed, like 'Shakespeare had not telephone' [Fodor] |
12628 | Knowing that must come before knowing how [Fodor] |
4758 | Naïve realism leads to physics, but physics then shows that naïve realism is false [Russell] |
16476 | For simple words, a single experience can show that they are true [Russell] |
12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
16485 | Perception can't prove universal generalisations, so abandon them, or abandon empiricism? [Russell] |
12636 | Mental states have causal powers [Fodor] |
12661 | The different types of resemblance don't resemble one another [Fodor] |
12632 | In the Representational view, concepts play the key linking role [Fodor] |
12624 | Only the labels of nodes have semantic content in connectionism, and they play no role [Fodor] |
12641 | Connectionism gives no account of how constituents make complex concepts [Fodor] |
12640 | Associative thinking avoids syntax, but can't preserve sense, reference or truth [Fodor] |
12643 | Ambiguities in English are the classic reason for claiming that we don't think in English [Fodor] |
12649 | We think in file names [Fodor] |
12647 | Mental representations name things in the world, but also files in our memory [Fodor] |
12655 | Frame Problem: how to eliminate most beliefs as irrelevant, without searching them? [Fodor] |
12630 | If concept content is reference, then my Twin and I are referring to the same stuff [Fodor] |
12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
12662 | We have an innate capacity to form a concept, once we have grasped the stereotype [Fodor] |
12635 | Having a concept isn't a pragmatic matter, but being able to think about the concept [Fodor] |
12652 | Concepts have two sides; they are files that face thought, and also face subject-matter [Fodor] |
12626 | Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession [Fodor] |
12637 | Frege's puzzles suggest to many that concepts have sense as well as reference [Fodor] |
12638 | If concepts have sense, we can't see the connection to their causal powers [Fodor] |
12639 | Belief in 'senses' may explain intentionality, but not mental processes [Fodor] |
12654 | You can't think 'brown dog' without thinking 'brown' and 'dog' [Fodor] |
12659 | Maybe stereotypes are a stage in concept acquisition (rather than a by-product) [Fodor] |
12660 | One stereotype might be a paradigm for two difference concepts [Fodor] |
12629 | For the referential view of thought, the content of a concept is just its reference [Fodor] |
12631 | Compositionality requires that concepts be atomic [Fodor] |
12657 | Abstractionism claims that instances provide criteria for what is shared [Fodor] |
12634 | 'Inferential-role semantics' says meaning is determined by role in inference [Fodor] |
12642 | Co-referring terms differ if they have different causal powers [Fodor] |
12663 | We refer to individuals and to properties, and we use singular terms and predicates [Fodor] |
12645 | Semantics (esp. referential semantics) allows inferences from utterances to the world [Fodor] |
12646 | Semantics relates to the world, so it is never just psychological [Fodor] |
12627 | Before you can plan action, you must decide on the truth of your estimate of success [Fodor] |
16478 | A mother cat is paralysed if equidistant between two needy kittens [Russell] |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |