29 ideas
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 9921 | 'True' is only occasionally useful, as in 'everything Fermat believed was true' [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9924 | Modal logic gives an account of metalogical possibility, not metaphysical possibility [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9933 | The paradoxes are only a problem for Frege; Cantor didn't assume every condition determines a set [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9928 | Mereology implies that acceptance of entities entails acceptance of conglomerates [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9926 | A relation is either a set of sets of sets, or a set of sets [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9932 | The paradoxes no longer seem crucial in critiques of set theory [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9923 | We should talk about possible existence, rather than actual existence, of numbers [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9925 | Structuralism and nominalism are normally rivals, but might work together [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9934 | Number words became nouns around the time of Plato [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9918 | Abstract/concrete is a distinction of kind, not degree [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9929 | Much of what science says about concrete entities is 'abstraction-laden' [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9927 | Mathematics has ascended to higher and higher levels of abstraction [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 9930 | Abstraction is on a scale, of sets, to attributes, to type-formulas, to token-formulas [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 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] |
| 22363 | You have only begun to do real science when you can express it in numbers [Kelvin] |
| 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] |
| 9919 | The old debate classified representations as abstract, not entities [Burgess/Rosen] |
| 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] |
| 20644 | Energy has progressed from a mere formula, to a principle pervading all nature [Kelvin] |
| 9922 | If space is really just a force-field, then it is a physical entity [Burgess/Rosen] |