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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Nature Without Essence' and 'The Blank Slate'

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23 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 6. Compactness
17867 If a concept is not compact, it will not be presentable to finite minds [Almog]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / d. Natural numbers
17877 The number series is primitive, not the result of some set theoretic axioms [Almog]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
7508 Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
17872 Definitionalists rely on snapshot-concepts, instead of on the real processes [Almog]
17871 Fregean meanings are analogous to conceptual essence, defining a kind [Almog]
17866 Essential definition aims at existence conditions and structural truths [Almog]
17868 Surface accounts aren't exhaustive as they always allow unintended twin cases [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 10. Essence as Species
17870 Alien 'tigers' can't be tigers if they are not related to our tigers [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence
17869 Kripke and Putnam offer an intermediary between real and nominal essences [Almog]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
17876 Individual essences are just cobbled together classificatory predicates [Almog]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
7510 Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
7513 Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
7509 Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
7511 Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker]
7512 There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
17873 Water must be related to water, just as tigers must be related to tigers [Almog]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
468 Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
7505 Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
17864 Defining an essence comes no where near giving a thing's nature [Almog]
17863 Essences promise to reveal reality, but actually drive us away from it [Almog]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
7516 In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
7515 All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker]
7514 Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker]