37 ideas
4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
17722 | The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke] |
3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |
3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |