50 ideas
14255 | We understand things through their dependency relations [Fine,K] |
14250 | Metaphysics deals with the existence of things and with the nature of things [Fine,K] |
6420 | Only by analysing is progress possible in philosophy [Russell] |
6432 | Analysis gives new knowledge, without destroying what we already have [Russell] |
14259 | Maybe two objects might require simultaneous real definitions, as with two simultaneous terms [Fine,K] |
6437 | The theory of types makes 'Socrates and killing are two' illegitimate [Russell] |
6442 | Truth belongs to beliefs, not to propositions and sentences [Russell] |
9921 | 'True' is only occasionally useful, as in 'everything Fermat believed was true' [Burgess/Rosen] |
9924 | Modal logic gives an account of metalogical possibility, not metaphysical possibility [Burgess/Rosen] |
9933 | The paradoxes are only a problem for Frege; Cantor didn't assume every condition determines a set [Burgess/Rosen] |
6436 | I gradually replaced classes with properties, and they ended as a symbolic convenience [Russell] |
9928 | Mereology implies that acceptance of entities entails acceptance of conglomerates [Burgess/Rosen] |
7528 | Leibniz bases everything on subject/predicate and substance/property propositions [Russell] |
9926 | A relation is either a set of sets of sets, or a set of sets [Burgess/Rosen] |
6439 | Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell] |
9932 | The paradoxes no longer seem crucial in critiques of set theory [Burgess/Rosen] |
9923 | We should talk about possible existence, rather than actual existence, of numbers [Burgess/Rosen] |
9925 | Structuralism and nominalism are normally rivals, but might work together [Burgess/Rosen] |
9934 | Number words became nouns around the time of Plato [Burgess/Rosen] |
6423 | We tried to define all of pure maths using logical premisses and concepts [Russell] |
6424 | Formalists say maths is merely conventional marks on paper, like the arbitrary rules of chess [Russell] |
6425 | Formalism can't apply numbers to reality, so it is an evasion [Russell] |
6426 | Intuitionism says propositions are only true or false if there is a method of showing it [Russell] |
14253 | An object's 'being' isn't existence; there's more to an object than existence, and its nature doesn't include existence [Fine,K] |
14261 | There is 'weak' dependence in one definition, and 'strong' dependence in all the definitions [Fine,K] |
14251 | A natural modal account of dependence says x depends on y if y must exist when x does [Fine,K] |
14257 | An object depends on another if the second cannot be eliminated from the first's definition [Fine,K] |
14254 | Dependency is the real counterpart of one term defining another [Fine,K] |
6419 | In 1899-1900 I adopted the philosophy of logical atomism [Russell] |
6438 | Complex things can be known, but not simple things [Russell] |
9918 | Abstract/concrete is a distinction of kind, not degree [Burgess/Rosen] |
9929 | Much of what science says about concrete entities is 'abstraction-laden' [Burgess/Rosen] |
9927 | Mathematics has ascended to higher and higher levels of abstraction [Burgess/Rosen] |
9930 | Abstraction is on a scale, of sets, to attributes, to type-formulas, to token-formulas [Burgess/Rosen] |
6434 | Facts are everything, except simples; they are either relations or qualities [Russell] |
6440 | Universals can't just be words, because words themselves are universals [Russell] |
14252 | We should understand identity in terms of the propositions it renders true [Fine,K] |
14256 | How do we distinguish basic from derived esssences? [Fine,K] |
14258 | Maybe some things have essential relationships as well as essential properties [Fine,K] |
14260 | An object only essentially has a property if that property follows from every definition of the object [Fine,K] |
6430 | In epistemology we should emphasis the continuity between animal and human minds [Russell] |
6441 | Pragmatism judges by effects, but I judge truth by causes [Russell] |
6431 | Empiricists seem unclear what they mean by 'experience' [Russell] |
6444 | True belief about the time is not knowledge if I luckily observe a stopped clock at the right moment [Russell] |
6433 | Behaviourists struggle to explain memory and imagination, because they won't admit images [Russell] |
6443 | Surprise is a criterion of error [Russell] |
9919 | The old debate classified representations as abstract, not entities [Burgess/Rosen] |
6427 | Unverifiable propositions about the remote past are still either true or false [Russell] |
6435 | You can believe the meaning of a sentence without thinking of the words [Russell] |
9922 | If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen] |