32 ideas
| 15200 | How could change consist of a conjunction of changeless facts? [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 14761 | Change is not just having two different qualities at different points in some series [McTaggart] |
| 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] |
| 3158 | Theories of intentionality presuppose rationality, so can't explain it [Dennett] |
| 3159 | Beliefs and desires aren't real; they are prediction techniques [Dennett] |
| 2608 | For McTaggart time is seen either as fixed, or as relative to events [McTaggart, by Ayer] |
| 22936 | A-series time positions are contradictory, and yet all events occupy all of them! [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 4231 | Time involves change, only the A-series explains change, but it involves contradictions, so time is unreal [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| 8591 | There could be no time if nothing changed [McTaggart] |
| 22935 | The B-series can be inferred from the A-series, but not the other way round [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |
| 7802 | A-series uses past, present and future; B-series uses 'before' and 'after' [McTaggart, by Girle] |
| 4230 | A-series expressions place things in time, and their truth varies; B-series is relative, and always true [McTaggart, by Lowe] |
| 15199 | The B-series must depend on the A-series, because change must be explained [McTaggart, by Le Poidevin] |