27 ideas
7454 | Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher [Hacking] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
7447 | Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812 [Hacking] |
7448 | Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence) [Hacking] |
7449 | Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments [Hacking] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
7450 | In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking] |
7451 | Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking] |
7452 | An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [Hacking, by PG] |
7459 | Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths [Hacking] |
23111 | If we say that freedom depends on rationality, the irrational actions are not free [Sidgwick] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
23059 | Self-interest is not rational, if the self is just a succession of memories and behaviour [Sidgwick, by Gray] |
4129 | It is self-evident (from the point of view of the Universe) that no individual has more importance than another [Sidgwick] |
20588 | Sidwick argues for utilitarian institutions, rather than actions [Sidgwick, by Tuckness/Wolf] |
8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |