39 ideas
| 7623 | For ancient Greeks being wise was an ethical value [Putnam] |
| 12124 | Metaphysics is the best knowledge, because it is the simplest [Bacon] |
| 12123 | Natural history supports physical knowledge, which supports metaphysical knowledge [Bacon] |
| 12119 | Physics studies transitory matter; metaphysics what is abstracted and necessary [Bacon] |
| 12120 | Physics is of material and efficient causes, metaphysics of formal and final causes [Bacon] |
| 4714 | Putnam's epistemic notion of truth replaces the realism of correspondence with ontological relativism [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 7617 | Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam] |
| 4716 | The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 7616 | Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam] |
| 14203 | Intension is not meaning, as 'cube' and 'square-faced polyhedron' are intensionally the same [Putnam] |
| 14207 | If cats equal cherries, model theory allows reinterpretation of the whole language preserving truth [Putnam] |
| 14214 | If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis] |
| 14205 | The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam] |
| 7610 | A fact is simply what it is rational to accept [Putnam] |
| 7618 | Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam] |
| 4718 | If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 12121 | We don't assume there is no land, because we can only see sea [Bacon] |
| 5163 | Basic propositions refer to a single experience, are incorrigible, and conclusively verifiable [Ayer] |
| 7620 | Some kind of objective 'rightness' is a presupposition of thought itself [Putnam] |
| 12117 | Science moves up and down between inventions of causes, and experiments [Bacon] |
| 14204 | Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam] |
| 12127 | Many different theories will fit the observed facts [Bacon] |
| 5167 | The argument from analogy fails, so the best account of other minds is behaviouristic [Ayer] |
| 12126 | People love (unfortunately) extreme generality, rather than particular knowledge [Bacon] |
| 7611 | Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam] |
| 14200 | 'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam] |
| 7612 | Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam] |
| 7613 | Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam] |
| 5164 | A statement is meaningful if observation statements can be deduced from it [Ayer] |
| 5165 | Directly verifiable statements must entail at least one new observation statement [Ayer] |
| 5166 | The principle of verification is not an empirical hypothesis, but a definition [Ayer] |
| 14202 | Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam] |
| 14201 | Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam] |
| 5162 | Sentences only express propositions if they are meaningful; otherwise they are 'statements' [Ayer] |
| 14206 | There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam] |
| 5168 | Moral approval and disapproval concerns classes of actions, rather than particular actions [Ayer] |
| 7624 | The word 'inconsiderate' nicely shows the blurring of facts and values [Putnam] |
| 12125 | Teleological accounts are fine in metaphysics, but they stop us from searching for the causes [Bacon] |
| 12118 | Essences are part of first philosophy, but as part of nature, not part of logic [Bacon] |