36 ideas
| 12104 | All ideas must be understood historically [Comte] |
| 12105 | Our knowledge starts in theology, passes through metaphysics, and ends in positivism [Comte] |
| 12112 | Metaphysics is just the oversubtle qualification of abstract names for phenomena [Comte] |
| 12111 | Positivism is the final state of human intelligence [Comte] |
| 12106 | Positivism gives up absolute truth, and seeks phenomenal laws, by reason and observation [Comte] |
| 12114 | Science can drown in detail, so we need broad scientists (to keep out the metaphysicians) [Comte] |
| 12116 | Only positivist philosophy can terminate modern social crises [Comte] |
| 10794 | The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10788 | Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10786 | Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10799 | Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10790 | Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10791 | Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10785 | Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10798 | A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10795 | Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10787 | Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 22180 | Multiple realisability is said to make reduction impossible [Okasha] |
| 10789 | Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10796 | If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 10797 | Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 12108 | All real knowledge rests on observed facts [Comte] |
| 12109 | We must observe in order to form theories, but connected observations need prior theories [Comte] |
| 22177 | Randomised Control Trials have a treatment and a control group, chosen at random [Okasha] |
| 22172 | Not all sciences are experimental; astronomy relies on careful observation [Okasha] |
| 22174 | The discoverers of Neptune didn't change their theory because of an anomaly [Okasha] |
| 22175 | Science mostly aims at confirming theories, rather than falsifying them [Okasha] |
| 22182 | Theories with unobservables are underdetermined by the evidence [Okasha] |
| 22185 | Two things can't be incompatible if they are incommensurable [Okasha] |
| 22176 | Induction is inferences from examined to unexamined instances of a given kind [Okasha] |
| 22178 | If the rules only concern changes of belief, and not the starting point, absurd views can look ratiional [Okasha] |
| 12107 | Positivism explains facts by connecting particular phenomena with general facts [Comte] |
| 12115 | Introspection is pure illusion; we can obviously observe everything except ourselves [Comte] |
| 12113 | The search for first or final causes is futile [Comte] |
| 12110 | We can never know origins, purposes or inner natures [Comte] |
| 22173 | Galileo refuted the Aristotelian theory that heavier objects fall faster [Okasha] |