Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Elbow Room: varieties of free will', 'Explanation - Opening Address' and 'fragments/reports'

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24 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
3798 An overexamined life is as bad as an unexamined one [Dennett]
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 / A. Nature of Reason / 9. Limits of Reason
3801 Rationality requires the assumption that things are either for better or worse [Dennett]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / c. Possible but inconceivable
3802 Why pronounce impossible what you cannot imagine? [Dennett]
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]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 2. Causal Justification
3795 Causal theories require the "right" sort of link (usually unspecified) [Dennett]
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]
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 4. Persons as Agents
3797 I am the sum total of what I directly control [Dennett]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
3800 You can be free even though force would have prevented you doing otherwise [Dennett, by PG]
3803 Can we conceive of a being with a will freer than our own? [Dennett]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
3791 Awareness of thought is a step beyond awareness of the world [Dennett]
3794 Foreknowledge permits control [Dennett]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 3. Intentional Stance
3796 The active self is a fiction created because we are ignorant of our motivations [Dennett]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]