13 ideas
| 21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
| 1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
| 18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
| 18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
| 13768 | Validity can preserve certainty in mathematics, but conditionals about contingents are another matter [Edgington] |
| 13770 | There are many different conditional mental states, and different conditional speech acts [Edgington] |
| 13764 | Are conditionals truth-functional - do the truth values of A and B determine the truth value of 'If A, B'? [Edgington] |
| 13765 | 'If A,B' must entail ¬(A & ¬B); otherwise we could have A true, B false, and If A,B true, invalidating modus ponens [Edgington] |
| 1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
| 8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |
| 15150 | The properties of an electron can't be explained just as 'clustering' [Chakravartty on Boyd] |
| 15149 | Properties cluster together, either because of intrinsic relations, or because of an underlying process [Boyd, by Chakravartty] |