39 ideas
| 3972 | Truth and objectivity depend on a community of speakers to interpret what they mean [Davidson] |
| 3969 | There are no ultimate standards of rationality, since we only assess others by our own standard [Davidson] |
| 4037 | Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver] |
| 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] |
| 13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
| 13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
| 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] |
| 3960 | There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties [Davidson] |
| 3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
| 3961 | Obviously all mental events are causally related to physical events [Davidson] |
| 3963 | There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events [Davidson] |
| 3965 | Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world [Davidson] |
| 3966 | The correct conclusion is ontological monism combined with conceptual dualism [Davidson] |
| 3967 | Absence of all rationality would be absence of thought [Davidson] |
| 3974 | Our meanings are partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant [Davidson] |
| 4039 | Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver] |
| 3968 | Propositions explain nothing without an explanation of how sentences manage to name them [Davidson] |
| 3970 | Thought is only fully developed if we communicate with others [Davidson] |
| 3971 | There is simply no alternative to the 'principle of charity' in interpreting what others do [Davidson] |
| 3973 | Without a teacher, the concept of 'getting things right or wrong' is meaningless [Davidson] |
| 3962 | Cause and effect relations between events must follow strict laws [Davidson] |