79 ideas
4767 | Traditionally, rational beliefs are those which are justified by reasons [Psillos] |
4810 | Valid deduction is monotonic - that is, it remains valid if further premises are added [Psillos] |
4768 | The 'epistemic fallacy' is inferring what does exist from what can be known to exist [Psillos] |
15682 | Even fairly simple animals make judgements based on categories [Gelman] |
15691 | Children accept real stable categories, with nonobvious potential that gives causal explanations [Gelman] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
15700 | In India, upper-castes essentialize caste more than lower-castes do [Gelman] |
15685 | Essentialism is either natural to us, or an accident of our culture, or a necessary result of language [Gelman] |
15684 | Children's concepts include nonobvious features, like internal parts, functions and causes [Gelman] |
15681 | Essentialism: real or representational? sortal, causal or ideal? real particulars, or placeholders? [Gelman] |
15678 | Essentialism says categories have a true hidden nature which gives an object its identity [Gelman] |
15683 | Sortals are needed for determining essence - the thing must be categorised first [Gelman] |
15697 | Kind (unlike individual) essentialism assumes preexisting natural categories [Gelman] |
15687 | Kinship is essence that comes in degrees, and age groups are essences that change over time [Gelman] |
15679 | Essentialism comes from the cognitive need to categorise [Gelman] |
15698 | We found no evidence that mothers teach essentialism to their children [Gelman] |
15709 | Essentialism is useful for predictions, but it is not the actual structure of reality [Gelman] |
15696 | Peope favor historical paths over outward properties when determining what something is [Gelman] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
15707 | There is intentional, mechanical, teleological, essentialist, vitalist and deontological understanding [Gelman] |
15703 | Memories often conform to a theory, rather than being neutral [Gelman] |
4808 | If we say where Mars was two months ago, we offer an explanation without a prediction [Psillos] |
4807 | A good barometer will predict a storm, but not explain it [Psillos] |
15708 | Inductive success is rewarded with more induction [Gelman] |
15694 | Children overestimate the power of a single example [Gelman] |
15695 | Children make errors in induction by focusing too much on categories [Gelman] |
4811 | Induction (unlike deduction) is non-monotonic - it can be invalidated by new premises [Psillos] |
15692 | People tend to be satisfied with shallow explanations [Gelman] |
4812 | Explanation is either showing predictability, or showing necessity, or showing causal relations [Psillos] |
4802 | Just citing a cause does not enable us to understand an event; we also need a relevant law [Psillos] |
4804 | The 'covering law model' says only laws can explain the occurrence of single events [Psillos] |
4805 | If laws explain the length of a flagpole's shadow, then the shadow also explains the length of the pole [Psillos] |
4395 | There are non-causal explanations, most typically mathematical explanations [Psillos] |
4806 | An explanation can just be a 'causal story', without laws, as when I knock over some ink [Psillos] |
4404 | Maybe explanation is entirely relative to the interests and presuppositions of the questioner [Psillos] |
4803 | An explanation is the removal of the surprise caused by the event [Psillos] |
4769 | It is hard to analyse causation, if it is presupposed in our theory of the functioning of the mind [Psillos] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
15680 | Folk essentialism rests on belief in natural kinds, in hidden properties, and on words indicating structures [Gelman] |
15686 | Labels may indicate categories which embody an essence [Gelman] |
15690 | Causal properties are seen as more central to category concepts [Gelman] |
15688 | Categories are characterized by distance from a prototype [Gelman] |
15689 | Theory-based concepts use rich models to show which similarities really matter [Gelman] |
15699 | Prelinguistic infants acquire and use many categories [Gelman] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
4770 | Nothing is more usual than to apply to external bodies every internal sensation which they occasion [Psillos] |
15693 | One sample of gold is enough, but one tree doesn't give the height of trees [Gelman] |
15701 | Nouns seem to invoke stable kinds more than predicates do [Gelman] |
4399 | Causes clearly make a difference, are recipes for events, explain effects, and are evidence [Psillos] |
4400 | Theories of causation are based either on regularity, or on intrinsic relations of properties [Psillos] |
4403 | We can't base our account of causation on explanation, because it is the wrong way round [Psillos] |
4789 | Three divisions of causal theories: generalist/singularist, intrinsic/extrinsic, reductive/non-reductive [Psillos] |
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] |
4790 | If causation is 'intrinsic' it depends entirely on the properties and relations of the cause and effect [Psillos] |
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] |
4402 | Empiricists tried to reduce causation to explanation, which they reduced to logic-plus-a-law [Psillos] |
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] |
4774 | Counterfactual claims about causation imply that it is more than just regular succession [Psillos] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
4793 | "All gold cubes are smaller than one cubic mile" is a true universal generalisation, but not a law [Psillos] |
4397 | Regularity doesn't seem sufficient for causation [Psillos] |
4792 | A Humean view of causation says it is regularities, and causal facts supervene on non-causal facts [Psillos] |
4801 | The regularity of a cock's crow is used to predict dawn, even though it doesn't cause it [Psillos] |
4401 | It is not a law of nature that all the coins in my pocket are euros, though it is a regularity [Psillos] |
4796 | Laws are sets of regularities within a simple and strong coherent system of wider regularities [Psillos] |
15705 | Essentialism encourages us to think about the world scientifically [Gelman] |
15702 | Essentialism doesn't mean we know the essences [Gelman] |
15704 | Essentialism starts from richly structured categories, leading to a search for underlying properties [Gelman] |
4799 | Dispositional essentialism can't explain its key distinction between essential and non-essential properties [Psillos] |
15706 | A major objection to real essences is the essentialising of social categories like race, caste and occupation [Gelman] |
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] |
4780 | In some counterfactuals, the counterfactual event happens later than its consequent [Psillos] |
4791 | Counterfactual theories say causes make a difference - if c hadn't occurred, then e wouldn't occur [Psillos] |