Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'What is Logic?' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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24 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
17070 Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
17072 We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 3. Types of Definition
13838 A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics [Hacking]
4. Formal Logic / B. Propositional Logic PL / 2. Tools of Propositional Logic / d. Basic theorems of PL
13833 'Thinning' ('dilution') is the key difference between deduction (which allows it) and induction [Hacking]
13834 Gentzen's Cut Rule (or transitivity of deduction) is 'If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C' [Hacking]
13835 Only Cut reduces complexity, so logic is constructive without it, and it can be dispensed with [Hacking]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic
13845 The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English [Hacking]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 5. First-Order Logic
13840 First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with Löwenheim-Skolem [Hacking]
13844 A limitation of first-order logic is that it cannot handle branching quantifiers [Hacking]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic
13842 Second-order completeness seems to need intensional entities and possible worlds [Hacking]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
13837 With a pure notion of truth and consequence, the meanings of connectives are fixed syntactically [Hacking]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 4. Variables in Logic
13839 Perhaps variables could be dispensed with, by arrows joining places in the scope of quantifiers [Hacking]
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 3. Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems
13843 If it is a logic, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for it [Hacking]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
17073 I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
17077 The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
17078 Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
17061 Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
17074 Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
17076 Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
17071 An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
17062 If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
17075 Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
468 Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]