11 ideas
21552 | Common speech is vague; its vocabulary and syntax must be modified, for precision [Russell] |
21551 | Empirical words need ostensive definition, which makes them egocentric [Russell] |
9169 | A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam] |
5819 | Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam] |
9168 | I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam] |
5820 | 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam] |
9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
21550 | Science reduces indexicals to a minimum, but they can never be eliminated from empirical matters [Russell] |
5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
7667 | There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin] |
5818 | If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam] |