Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Improvement of Understanding', 'Against the Physicists (two books)' and 'Conditionals'

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31 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
16541 All the intrinsic properties of a thing should be deducible from its definition [Spinoza]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
14352 '¬', '&', and 'v' are truth functions: the truth of the compound is fixed by the truth of the components [Jackson]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
22744 Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / b. Types of conditional
14360 Possible worlds for subjunctives (and dispositions), and no-truth for indicatives? [Jackson]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
14353 Modus ponens requires that A→B is F when A is T and B is F [Jackson]
14354 When A and B have the same truth value, A→B is true, because A→A is a logical truth [Jackson]
14355 (A&B)→A is a logical truth, even if antecedent false and consequent true, so it is T if A is F and B is T [Jackson]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
14358 In the possible worlds account of conditionals, modus ponens and modus tollens are validated [Jackson]
14359 Only assertions have truth-values, and conditionals are not proper assertions [Jackson]
14357 Possible worlds account, unlike A⊃B, says nothing about when A is false [Jackson]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / f. Pragmatics of conditionals
14356 We can't insist that A is relevant to B, as conditionals can express lack of relevance [Jackson]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
22748 Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
13073 To understand the properties we must know the essence, as with a circle [Spinoza]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
22746 If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
22741 The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
22747 A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
22749 Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals
22750 Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
22742 Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
22751 If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
22730 All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
22739 God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
22738 The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
22734 God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
22736 God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
22740 God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
22735 The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
22732 The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
22728 Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
22737 An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 1. Animism
22731 It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]