29 ideas
6211 | Laughter is a sudden glory in realising the infirmity of others, or our own formerly [Hobbes] |
2546 | Philosophy is a magnificent failure in its attempt to overstep the limits of our knowledge [McGinn] |
2544 | Thoughts have a dual aspect: as they seem to introspection, and their underlying logical reality [McGinn] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
2539 | Mental modules for language, social, action, theory, space, emotion [McGinn] |
2545 | Free will is mental causation in action [McGinn] |
6213 | A man cannot will to will, or will to will to will, so the idea of a voluntary will is absurd [Hobbes] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
2543 | Brains aren't made of anything special, suggesting panpsychism [McGinn] |
2540 | Examining mind sees no brain; examining brain sees no mind [McGinn] |
6208 | Conceptions and apparitions are just motion in some internal substance of the head [Hobbes] |
2547 | There is information if there are symbols which refer, and which can combine into a truth or falsehood [McGinn] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
6209 | There is no absolute good, for even the goodness of God is goodness to us [Hobbes] |
6210 | Life has no end (not even happiness), because we have desires, which presuppose a further end [Hobbes] |
6212 | Lust involves pleasure, and also the sense of power in pleasing others [Hobbes] |
2542 | Causation in the material world is energy-transfer, of motion, electricity or gravity [McGinn] |
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] |