Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Course of Positive Philosophy', 'An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth' and 'Identity'

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25 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism
7491 The phases of human thought are theological, then metaphysical, then positivist [Comte, by Watson]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 7. Falsehood
16477 Asserting not-p is saying p is false [Russell]
4. Formal Logic / C. Predicate Calculus PC / 2. Tools of Predicate Calculus / e. Existential quantifier ∃
16484 There are four experiences that lead us to talk of 'some' things [Russell]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic
16486 The physical world doesn't need logic, but the mental world does [Russell]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 2. Excluded Middle
2947 Questions wouldn't lead anywhere without the law of excluded middle [Russell]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / e. or
16480 A disjunction expresses indecision [Russell]
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]
16483 Disjunction may also arise in practice if there is imperfect memory. [Russell]
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / c. Grelling's paradox
16475 A 'heterological' predicate can't be predicated of itself; so is 'heterological' heterological? Yes=no! [Russell]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / c. Counting procedure
16014 It is controversial whether only 'numerical identity' allows two things to be counted as one [Noonan]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
16024 I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not [Noonan]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
16023 Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 2. Defining Identity
16015 Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [Noonan]
16017 Identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation satisfying Leibniz's Law [Noonan]
16016 Identity definitions (such as self-identity, or the smallest equivalence relation) are usually circular [Noonan]
16020 Identity can only be characterised in a second-order language [Noonan]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law
16018 Indiscernibility is basic to our understanding of identity and distinctness [Noonan]
16019 Leibniz's Law must be kept separate from the substitutivity principle [Noonan]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
16482 All our knowledge (if verbal) is general, because all sentences contain general words [Russell]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / a. Naïve realism
4758 Naïve realism leads to physics, but physics then shows that naïve realism is false [Russell]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
16476 For simple words, a single experience can show that they are true [Russell]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
16485 Perception can't prove universal generalisations, so abandon them, or abandon empiricism? [Russell]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
16478 A mother cat is paralysed if equidistant between two needy kittens [Russell]