74 ideas
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
1627 | Any statement can be held true if we make enough adjustment to the rest of the system [Quine] |
1623 | Definition rests on synonymy, rather than explaining it [Quine] |
18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
9204 | Quine's arguments fail because he naively conflates names with descriptions [Fine,K on Quine] |
18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
17738 | Quine blurs the difference between knowledge of arithmetic and of physics [Jenkins on Quine] |
18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
19492 | Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology [Yablo on Quine] |
18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
1628 | If physical objects are a myth, they are useful for making sense of experience [Quine] |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
10929 | Aristotelian essence of the object has become the modern essence of meaning [Quine] |
12188 | Contrary to some claims, Quine does not deny logical necessity [Quine, by McFetridge] |
15090 | Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths [Quine, by Shoemaker] |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
9383 | Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine] |
12424 | Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher] |
9338 | Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine] |
9337 | Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich] |
9340 | Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine] |
1620 | Empiricism makes a basic distinction between truths based or not based on facts [Quine] |
1629 | Our outer beliefs must match experience, and our inner ones must be simple [Quine] |
19488 | The second dogma is linking every statement to some determinate observations [Quine, by Yablo] |
1625 | Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body [Quine] |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
1626 | It is troublesome nonsense to split statements into a linguistic and a factual component [Quine] |
7317 | 'Renate' and 'cordate' have identical extensions, but are not synonymous [Quine, by Miller,A] |
1621 | Once meaning and reference are separated, meaning ceases to seem important [Quine] |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
9371 | Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine] |
1622 | Did someone ever actually define 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man'? [Quine] |
9366 | Quine's attack on analyticity undermined linguistic views of necessity, and analytic views of the a priori [Quine, by Boghossian] |
14473 | Quine attacks the Fregean idea that we can define analyticity through synonyous substitution [Quine, by Thomasson] |
7321 | The last two parts of 'Two Dogmas' are much the best [Miller,A on Quine] |
8803 | Erasing the analytic/synthetic distinction got rid of meanings, and saved philosophy of language [Davidson on Quine] |
17737 | The analytic needs excessively small units of meaning and empirical confirmation [Quine, by Jenkins] |
1624 | If we try to define analyticity by synonymy, that leads back to analyticity [Quine] |
7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |