69 ideas
5196 | Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer] |
5189 | Philosophers should abandon speculation, as philosophy is wholly critical [Ayer] |
6979 | Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences [Jackson] |
7919 | Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C] |
6980 | Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story [Jackson] |
6983 | Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis [Jackson] |
14707 | Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Jackson, by Schroeter] |
5195 | Critics say analysis can only show the parts, and not their distinctive configuration [Ayer] |
5179 | Philosophy deals with the questions that scientists do not wish to handle [Ayer] |
7005 | Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account [Jackson] |
6994 | Truth supervenes on being [Jackson] |
4749 | We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer] |
5202 | Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer] |
6984 | Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level [Jackson] |
6523 | Positivists regard ontology as either meaningless or stipulated [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
6978 | Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson] |
6993 | Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans [Jackson] |
6987 | We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity [Jackson] |
6988 | Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework [Jackson] |
6975 | Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson] |
5183 | Only tautologies can be certain; other propositions can only be probable [Ayer] |
6525 | Logical positivists could never give the sense-data equivalent of 'there is a table next door' [Robinson,H on Ayer] |
5170 | Material things are constructions from actual and possible occurrences of sense-contents [Ayer] |
6982 | Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible [Jackson] |
5198 | We could verify 'a thing can't be in two places at once' by destroying one of the things [Ierubino on Ayer] |
2619 | Whether geometry can be applied to reality is an empirical question outside of geometry [Ayer] |
5197 | By changing definitions we could make 'a thing can't be in two places at once' a contradiction [Ayer] |
5204 | To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer] |
6991 | We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson] |
6524 | Positivists prefer sense-data to objects, because the vocabulary covers both illusions and perceptions [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
5193 | Causal and representative theories of perception are wrong as they refer to unobservables [Ayer] |
5200 | The main claim of rationalism is that thought is an independent source of knowledge [Ayer] |
4729 | Empiricism lacked a decent account of the a priori, until Ayer said it was entirely analytic [O'Grady on Ayer] |
5180 | All propositions (especially 'metaphysics') must begin with the senses [Ayer] |
5169 | My empiricism logically distinguishes analytic and synthetic propositions, and metaphysical verbiage [Ayer] |
5185 | It is further sense-experience which informs us of the mistakes that arise out of sense-experience [Ayer] |
5199 | Empiricism, it is said, cannot account for our knowledge of necessary truths [Ayer] |
5190 | The induction problem is to prove generalisations about the future based on the past [Ayer] |
5191 | We can't use the uniformity of nature to prove induction, as that would be circular [Ayer] |
5177 | Other minds are 'metaphysical' objects, because I can never observe their experiences [Ayer] |
5178 | A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer] |
5172 | If the self is meaningful, it must be constructed from sense-experiences [Ayer] |
5173 | Two experiences belong to one self if their contents belong with one body [Ayer] |
5176 | Empiricists can define personal identity as bodily identity, which consists of sense-contents [Ayer] |
5171 | The supposed 'gulf' between mind and matter is based on the senseless concept of 'substances' [Ayer] |
6976 | In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson] |
6986 | Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson] |
6992 | If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible [Jackson] |
6996 | Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output [Jackson] |
6977 | Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so [Jackson] |
6990 | Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water' [Jackson] |
6985 | Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases [Jackson] |
5181 | A sentence is factually significant to someone if they know how to verify its proposition [Ayer] |
5184 | Factual propositions imply (in conjunction with a few other premises) possible experiences [Ayer] |
5186 | Tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions [Ayer] |
6995 | Successful predication supervenes on nature [Jackson] |
6989 | I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions [Jackson] |
6998 | Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson] |
6997 | Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality [Jackson] |
7000 | Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.? [Jackson] |
5205 | Moral intuition is worthless if there is no criterion to decide between intuitions [Ayer] |
23725 | Ayer defends the emotivist version of expressivism [Ayer, by Smith,M] |
5206 | To say an act is wrong makes no further statement about it, but merely expresses disapproval [Ayer] |
16764 | The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus] |
6999 | It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide [Jackson] |
5208 | A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer] |
5187 | When we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists [Ayer] |
5207 | If theism is non-sensical, then so is atheism. [Ayer] |
5209 | The 'truths' expressed by theists are not literally significant [Ayer] |