Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Transworld Heir Lines', 'Representation and Reality' and 'The Methods of Ethics (7th edn)'

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32 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam]
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 2. Semantic Truth
Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth
Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam]
5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 1. Ontology of Logic
Logicians like their entities to exhibit a maximum degree of purity [Kaplan]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 7. Substratum
Models nicely separate particulars from their clothing, and logicians often accept that metaphysically [Kaplan]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
The simplest solution to transworld identification is to adopt bare particulars [Kaplan]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts
Unusual people may have no counterparts, or several [Kaplan]
Essence is a transworld heir line, rather than a collection of properties [Kaplan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
If we say that freedom depends on rationality, the irrational actions are not free [Sidgwick]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam]
Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam]
Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
"Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam]
Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam]
Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 8. Synonymy
Sentences might have the same sense when logically equivalent - or never have the same sense [Kaplan]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / a. Direct reference
We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam]
Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / c. Social reference
Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam]
Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
Self-interest is not rational, if the self is just a succession of memories and behaviour [Sidgwick, by Gray]
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
It is self-evident (from the point of view of the Universe) that no individual has more importance than another [Sidgwick]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 4. Social Utilitarianism
Sidwick argues for utilitarian institutions, rather than actions [Sidgwick, by Tuckness/Wolf]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 5. Reference to Natural Kinds
"Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam]