28 ideas
8207 | The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine] |
8208 | In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine] |
6396 | A sentence is held true because of a combination of meaning and belief [Davidson] |
15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
8206 | Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine] |
15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
11145 | Having a belief involves the possibility of being mistaken [Davidson] |
6397 | The concept of belief can only derive from relationship to a speech community [Davidson] |
6392 | Thought depends on speech [Davidson] |
6393 | A creature doesn't think unless it interprets another's speech [Davidson] |
11144 | Concepts are only possible in a language community [Davidson] |
6395 | An understood sentence can be used for almost anything; it isn't language if it has only one use [Davidson] |
6394 | The pattern of sentences held true gives sentences their meaning [Davidson] |
15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |
15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |