66 ideas
| 21634 | Metaphysics is (supposedly) first the ontology, then in general what things are like [Hofweber] |
| 6095 | The business of metaphysics is to describe the world [Russell] |
| 21666 | 'Fundamentality' is either a superficial idea, or much too obscure [Hofweber] |
| 6106 | Reducing entities and premisses makes error less likely [Russell] |
| 6090 | Facts make propositions true or false, and are expressed by whole sentences [Russell] |
| 18348 | Not only atomic truths, but also general and negative truths, have truth-makers [Russell, by Rami] |
| 21640 | 'It's true that Fido is a dog' conjures up a contrast class, of 'it's false' or 'it's unlikely' [Hofweber] |
| 6103 | Normally a class with only one member is a problem, because the class and the member are identical [Russell] |
| 21657 | Since properties can have properties, some theorists rank them in 'types' [Hofweber] |
| 6092 | In a logically perfect language, there will be just one word for every simple object [Russell] |
| 6101 | Romulus does not occur in the proposition 'Romulus did not exist' [Russell] |
| 8447 | In 'Etna is higher than Vesuvius' the whole of Etna, including all the lava, can't be the reference [Frege] |
| 6102 | You can understand 'author of Waverley', but to understand 'Scott' you must know who it applies to [Russell] |
| 10423 | There are a set of criteria for pinning down a logically proper name [Russell, by Sainsbury] |
| 8448 | Any object can have many different names, each with a distinct sense [Frege] |
| 7744 | Treat description using quantifiers, and treat proper names as descriptions [Russell, by McCullogh] |
| 21653 | Maybe not even names are referential, but are just by used by speakers to refer [Hofweber] |
| 21636 | 'Singular terms' are not found in modern linguistics, and are not the same as noun phrases [Hofweber] |
| 21637 | If two processes are said to be identical, that doesn't make their terms refer to entities [Hofweber] |
| 10426 | A name has got to name something or it is not a name [Russell] |
| 21643 | The inferential quantifier focuses on truth; the domain quantifier focuses on reality [Hofweber] |
| 21644 | Numbers are used as singular terms, as adjectives, and as symbols [Hofweber] |
| 21646 | The Amazonian Piraha language is said to have no number words [Hofweber] |
| 21665 | The fundamental theorem of arithmetic is that all numbers are composed uniquely of primes [Hofweber] |
| 21649 | How can words be used for counting if they are objects? [Hofweber] |
| 21647 | Logicism makes sense of our ability to know arithmetic just by thought [Hofweber] |
| 21648 | Neo-Fregeans are dazzled by a technical result, and ignore practicalities [Hofweber] |
| 6104 | Numbers are classes of classes, and hence fictions of fictions [Russell] |
| 21664 | Supervenience offers little explanation for things which necessarily go together [Hofweber] |
| 21708 | Russell's new logical atomist was of particulars, universals and facts (not platonic propositions) [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
| 19051 | Russell's atomic facts are actually compounds, and his true logical atoms are sense data [Russell, by Quine] |
| 6089 | Logical atomism aims at logical atoms as the last residue of analysis [Russell] |
| 6100 | Once you have enumerated all the atomic facts, there is a further fact that those are all the facts [Russell] |
| 6105 | Logical atoms aims to get down to ultimate simples, with their own unique reality [Russell] |
| 21660 | Reality can be seen as the totality of facts, or as the totality of things [Hofweber] |
| 21709 | You can't name all the facts, so they are not real, but are what propositions assert [Russell] |
| 21661 | There are probably ineffable facts, systematically hidden from us [Hofweber] |
| 18376 | Russell asserts atomic, existential, negative and general facts [Russell, by Armstrong] |
| 5465 | Modern trope theory tries, like logical atomism, to reduce things to elementary states [Russell, by Ellis] |
| 6060 | 'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true [Russell] |
| 21652 | Our perceptual beliefs are about ordinary objects, not about simples arranged chair-wise [Hofweber] |
| 6099 | Modal terms are properties of propositional functions, not of propositions [Russell] |
| 21663 | Counterfactuals are essential for planning, and learning from mistakes [Hofweber] |
| 6098 | Perception goes straight to the fact, and not through the proposition [Russell] |
| 6097 | The theory of error seems to need the existence of the non-existent [Russell] |
| 21654 | The "Fido"-Fido theory of meaning says every expression in a language has a referent [Hofweber] |
| 8446 | We understand new propositions by constructing their sense from the words [Frege] |
| 21641 | Inferential role semantics is an alternative to semantics that connects to the world [Hofweber] |
| 8449 | Senses can't be subjective, because propositions would be private, and disagreement impossible [Frege] |
| 21638 | Syntactic form concerns the focus of the sentence, as well as the truth-conditions [Hofweber] |
| 9022 | Russell uses 'propositional function' to refer to both predicates and to attributes [Quine on Russell] |
| 21658 | Properties can be expressed in a language despite the absence of a single word for them [Hofweber] |
| 21659 | 'Being taller than this' is a predicate which can express many different properties [Hofweber] |
| 21655 | Compositonality is a way to build up the truth-conditions of a sentence [Hofweber] |
| 6091 | Propositions don't name facts, because each fact corresponds to a proposition and its negation [Russell] |
| 21656 | Proposition have no content, because they are content [Hofweber] |
| 21635 | Without propositions there can be no beliefs or desires [Hofweber] |
| 21702 | In 1918 still believes in nonlinguistic analogues of sentences, but he now calls them 'facts' [Russell, by Quine] |
| 21662 | Do there exist thoughts which we are incapable of thinking? [Hofweber] |
| 6094 | An inventory of the world does not need to include propositions [Russell] |
| 6096 | I no longer believe in propositions, especially concerning falsehoods [Russell] |
| 21712 | I know longer believe in shadowy things like 'that today is Wednesday' when it is actually Tuesday [Russell] |
| 6093 | The names in a logically perfect language would be private, and could not be shared [Russell] |
| 21645 | 'Semantic type coercion' is selecting the reading of a word to make the best sense [Hofweber] |
| 21639 | 'Background deletion' is appropriately omitting background from an answer [Hofweber] |
| 6119 | You can discuss 'God exists', so 'God' is a description, not a name [Russell] |