17 ideas
4037 | Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver] |
5311 | If observation goes up a level, we expect the laws of the lower level to remain in force [Wilson,EO] |
4027 | Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ [Mellor/Oliver] |
4029 | Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver] |
5312 | A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO] |
5309 | Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO] |
9567 | Maths deals with quantities of physical significance, ignoring irrelevant features [Geroch] |
4039 | Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver] |
5310 | Philosophers study the consequences of ethics instead of its origins [Wilson,EO] |
5313 | The rules of human decision-making converge and overlap in a 'human nature' [Wilson,EO] |
5316 | We undermine altruism by rewarding it, but we reward it to encourage it [Wilson,EO] |
5318 | Pure hard-core altruism based on kin selection is the enemy of civilisation [Wilson,EO] |
5317 | The actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real [Wilson,EO] |
5308 | The only human purpose is that created by our genetic history [Wilson,EO] |
5314 | Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO] |
5315 | Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO] |
5320 | It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO] |