33 ideas
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 4568 | If 'Queen of England' does not refer if there is no queen, its meaning can't refer if there is one [Cooper,DE] |
| 14775 | Numbers are just names devised for counting [Peirce] |
| 14776 | That two two-eyed people must have four eyes is a statement about numbers, not a fact [Peirce] |
| 4574 | If some peoples do not have categories like time or cause, they can't be essential features of rationality [Cooper,DE] |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| 14770 | Reasoning is based on statistical induction, so it can't achieve certainty or precision [Peirce] |
| 14774 | Innate truths are very uncertain and full of error, so they certainly have exceptions [Peirce] |
| 14773 | A truth is hard for us to understand if it rests on nothing but inspiration [Peirce] |
| 14772 | If we decide an idea is inspired, we still can't be sure we have got the idea right [Peirce] |
| 14771 | Only reason can establish whether some deliverance of revelation really is inspired [Peirce] |
| 4573 | If it is claimed that language correlates with culture, we must be able to identify the two independently [Cooper,DE] |
| 4575 | A person's language doesn't prove their concepts, but how are concepts deduced apart from language? [Cooper,DE] |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| 14769 | Only imagination can connect phenomena together in a rational way [Peirce] |
| 4561 | Many sentences set up dispositions which are irrelevant to the meanings of the sentences [Cooper,DE] |
| 4564 | I can meaningfully speculate that humans may have experiences currently impossible for us [Cooper,DE] |
| 4565 | The verification principle itself seems neither analytic nor verifiable [Cooper,DE] |
| 4563 | 'How now brown cow?' is used for elocution, but this says nothing about its meaning [Cooper,DE] |
| 4562 | Most people know how to use the word "Amen", but they do not know what it means [Cooper,DE] |
| 4571 | Reference need not be a hit-or-miss affair [Cooper,DE] |
| 4566 | Any thesis about reference is also a thesis about what exists to be referred to [Cooper,DE] |
| 4572 | If predicates name things, that reduces every sentence to a mere list of names [Cooper,DE] |
| 4576 | An analytic truth is one which becomes a logical truth when some synonyms have been replaced [Cooper,DE] |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |