Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Truth' and 'Dispositions and Powers'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


32 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 3. Analysis of Preconditions
In "if and only if" (iff), "if" expresses the sufficient condition, and "only if" the necessary condition [Engel]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
Are truth-bearers propositions, or ideas/beliefs, or sentences/utterances? [Engel]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 2. Correspondence to Facts
The redundancy theory gets rid of facts, for 'it is a fact that p' just means 'p' [Engel]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
We can't explain the corresponding structure of the world except by referring to our thoughts [Engel]
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
The coherence theory says truth is an internal relationship between groups of truth-bearers [Engel]
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 2. Coherence Truth Critique
Any coherent set of beliefs can be made more coherent by adding some false beliefs [Engel]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
Deflationism seems to block philosophers' main occupation, asking metatheoretical questions [Engel]
Deflationism cannot explain why we hold beliefs for reasons [Engel]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 3. Minimalist Truth
Maybe there is no more to be said about 'true' than there is about the function of 'and' in logic [Engel]
5. Theory of Logic / D. Assumptions for Logic / 1. Bivalence
Deflationism must reduce bivalence ('p is true or false') to excluded middle ('p or not-p') [Engel]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
Humeans see properties as having no more essential features and relations than their distinctness [Friend/Kimpton-Nye, by PG]
Dispositions are what individuate properties, and they constitute their essence [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
'Masked' dispositions fail to react because something intervenes [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
A disposition is 'altered' when the stimulus reverses the disposition [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
A disposition is 'mimicked' if a different cause produces that effect from that stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
A 'trick' can look like a stimulus for a disposition which will happen without it [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
Some dispositions manifest themselves without a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
We could analyse dispositions as 'possibilities', with no mention of a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
Dispositionalism says modality is in the powers of this world, not outsourced to possible worlds [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
The Humean theory of motivation is that beliefs may be motivators as well as desires [Engel]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
Our beliefs are meant to fit the world (i.e. be true), where we want the world to fit our desires [Engel]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / d. Cause of beliefs
'Evidentialists' say, and 'voluntarists' deny, that we only believe on the basis of evidence [Engel]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 3. Pragmatism
Pragmatism is better understood as a theory of belief than as a theory of truth [Engel]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 5. Controlling Beliefs
We cannot directly control our beliefs, but we can control the causes of our involuntary beliefs [Engel]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
Mental states as functions are second-order properties, realised by first-order physical properties [Engel]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 7. Strictness of Laws
Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]