Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thought and Talk', 'The Actual and the Virtual' and 'The Blank Slate'

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19 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 1. Truth
A sentence is held true because of a combination of meaning and belief [Davidson]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Good reductionism connects fields of knowledge, but doesn't replace one with another [Pinker]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories [Deleuze, by May]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
Having a belief involves the possibility of being mistaken [Davidson]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / e. Belief holism
The concept of belief can only derive from relationship to a speech community [Davidson]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
Connectionists say the mind is a general purpose learning device [Pinker]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
Is memory stored in protein sequences, neurons, synapses, or synapse-strengths? [Pinker]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
Roundworms live successfully with 302 neurons, so human freedom comes from our trillions [Pinker]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Neural networks can generalise their training, e.g. truths about tigers apply mostly to lions [Pinker]
There are five types of reasoning that seem beyond connectionist systems [Pinker, by PG]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Thought depends on speech [Davidson]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 8. Human Thought
A creature doesn't think unless it interprets another's speech [Davidson]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 5. Concepts and Language / a. Concepts and language
Concepts are only possible in a language community [Davidson]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
An understood sentence can be used for almost anything; it isn't language if it has only one use [Davidson]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
The pattern of sentences held true gives sentences their meaning [Davidson]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
Many think that accepting human nature is to accept innumerable evils [Pinker]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 2. Life
In 1828, the stuff of life was shown to be ordinary chemistry, not a magic gel [Pinker]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
All the evidence says evolution is cruel and wasteful, not intelligent [Pinker]
Intelligent Design says that every unexplained phenomenon must be design, by default [Pinker]