30 ideas
7623 | For ancient Greeks being wise was an ethical value [Putnam] |
4714 | Putnam's epistemic notion of truth replaces the realism of correspondence with ontological relativism [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
7617 | Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam] |
4716 | The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
7616 | Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam] |
14203 | Intension is not meaning, as 'cube' and 'square-faced polyhedron' are intensionally the same [Putnam] |
14207 | If cats equal cherries, model theory allows reinterpretation of the whole language preserving truth [Putnam] |
14214 | If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis] |
14205 | The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam] |
7610 | A fact is simply what it is rational to accept [Putnam] |
7618 | Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam] |
4718 | If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
9169 | A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam] |
5819 | Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam] |
7620 | Some kind of objective 'rightness' is a presupposition of thought itself [Putnam] |
14204 | Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam] |
7611 | Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam] |
14200 | 'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam] |
9168 | I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam] |
5820 | 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam] |
7612 | Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam] |
17722 | The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke] |
7613 | Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam] |
14202 | Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam] |
14201 | Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam] |
9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
14206 | There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam] |
7624 | The word 'inconsiderate' nicely shows the blurring of facts and values [Putnam] |
5818 | If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam] |