40 ideas
| 11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
| 15879 | The Square of Opposition has two contradictory pairs, one contrary pair, and one sub-contrary pair [Harré] |
| 15891 | Traditional quantifiers combine ordinary language generality and ontology assumptions [Harré] |
| 15878 | Some quantifiers, such as 'any', rule out any notion of order within their range [Harré] |
| 11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
| 11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| 11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
| 15874 | Scientific properties are not observed qualities, but the dispositions which create them [Harré] |
| 11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
| 11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
| 11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
| 17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
| 11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
| 15884 | Laws of nature remain the same through any conditions, if the underlying mechanisms are unchanged [Harré] |
| 15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
| 15869 | Reports of experiments eliminate the experimenter, and present results as the behaviour of nature [Harré] |
| 15881 | We can save laws from counter-instances by treating the latter as analytic definitions [Harré] |
| 15882 | Since there are three different dimensions for generalising laws, no one system of logic can cover them [Harré] |
| 15888 | The grue problem shows that natural kinds are central to science [Harré] |
| 15887 | 'Grue' introduces a new causal hypothesis - that emeralds can change colour [Harré] |
| 15889 | It is because ravens are birds that their species and their colour might be connected [Harré] |
| 15890 | Non-black non-ravens just aren't part of the presuppositions of 'all ravens are black' [Harré] |
| 15885 | The necessity of Newton's First Law derives from the nature of material things, not from a mechanism [Harré] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
| 11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |
| 4366 | We can't accept Aristotle's naturalism about persons, because it is normative and unscientific [Williams,B, by Hursthouse] |
| 15886 | Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré] |
| 15864 | Classification is just as important as laws in natural science [Harré] |
| 15865 | Newton's First Law cannot be demonstrated experimentally, as that needs absence of external forces [Harré] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
| 15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
| 15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
| 15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
| 15892 | Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms [Harré] |
| 15875 | In counterfactuals we keep substances constant, and imagine new situations for them [Harré] |