53 ideas
5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
6267 | A culture needs to admit that knowledge is more extensive than just 'science' [Putnam] |
6272 | 'True' and 'refers' cannot be made scientically precise, but are fundamental to science [Putnam] |
6276 | 'The rug is green' might be warrantedly assertible even though the rug is not green [Putnam] |
6266 | We need the correspondence theory of truth to understand language and science [Putnam] |
6277 | Correspondence between concepts and unconceptualised reality is impossible [Putnam] |
6264 | In Tarski's definition, you understand 'true' if you accept the notions of the object language [Putnam] |
6265 | Tarski has given a correct account of the formal logic of 'true', but there is more to the concept [Putnam] |
6269 | Only Tarski has found a way to define 'true' [Putnam] |
6280 | Realism is a theory, which explains the convergence of science and the success of language [Putnam] |
6284 | If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam] |
6273 | Knowledge depends on believing others, which must be innate, as inferences are not strong enough [Putnam] |
6274 | Empathy may not give knowledge, but it can give plausibility or right opinion [Putnam] |
5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
17084 | You can't decide which explanations are good if you don't attend to the interest-relative aspects [Putnam] |
5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
6282 | Theory of meaning presupposes theory of understanding and reference [Putnam] |
6281 | Truth conditions can't explain understanding a sentence, because that in turn needs explanation [Putnam] |
6278 | We should reject the view that truth is prior to meaning [Putnam] |
6271 | How reference is specified is not what reference is [Putnam] |
6268 | The claim that scientific terms are incommensurable can be blocked if scientific terms are not descriptions [Putnam] |
7357 | People who control others with fluent language often end up being hated [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
6279 | A private language could work with reference and beliefs, and wouldn't need meaning [Putnam] |
6270 | The correct translation is the one that explains the speaker's behaviour [Putnam] |
6283 | Language maps the world in many ways (because it maps onto other languages in many ways) [Putnam] |
6275 | You can't say 'most speaker's beliefs are true'; in some areas this is not so, and you can't count beliefs [Putnam] |
5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
7358 | All men prefer outward appearance to true excellence [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
7362 | Humans are similar, but social conventions drive us apart (sages and idiots being the exceptions) [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
7360 | Do not do to others what you would not desire yourself [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
7359 | Excess and deficiency are equally at fault [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
7363 | The virtues of the best people are humility, maganimity, sincerity, diligence, and graciousness [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
7361 | Men of the highest calibre avoid political life completely [Kongzi (Confucius)] |
23393 | Confucianism assumes that all good developments have happened, and there is only one Way [Norden on Kongzi (Confucius)] |
5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |