Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Locke on Human Understanding', 'Against the Physicists (two books)' and 'Contextualist Solutions to Scepticism'

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29 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
Two things can only resemble one another in some respect, and that may reintroduce a universal [Lowe]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
On substances, Leibniz emphasises unity, Spinoza independence, Locke relations to qualities [Lowe]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
Perception is a mode of belief-acquisition, and does not involve sensation [Lowe]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
Science requires a causal theory - perception of an object must be an experience caused by the object [Lowe]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 6. Contextual Justification / a. Contextualism
Contextualism needs a semantics for knowledge sentences that are partly indexical [Schiffer,S]
The indexical aspect of contextual knowledge might be hidden, or it might be in what 'know' means [Schiffer,S]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
Personal identity is a problem across time (diachronic) and at an instant (synchronic) [Lowe]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Mentalese isn't a language, because it isn't conventional, or a means of public communication [Lowe]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
If meaning is mental pictures, explain "the cat (or dog!) is NOT on the mat" [Lowe]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals
Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 1. Animism
It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]