69 ideas
5196 | Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer] |
5189 | Philosophers should abandon speculation, as philosophy is wholly critical [Ayer] |
7919 | Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C] |
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] |
22317 | Truth does not admit of more and less [Frege] |
4749 | We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer] |
13455 | Frege did not think of himself as working with sets [Frege, by Hart,WD] |
16895 | The null set is indefensible, because it collects nothing [Frege, by Burge] |
3328 | Frege proposed a realist concept of a set, as the extension of a predicate or concept or function [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
9179 | Frege frequently expressed a contempt for language [Frege, by Dummett] |
13473 | Frege thinks there is an independent logical order of the truths, which we must try to discover [Frege, by Hart,WD] |
6076 | For Frege, predicates are names of functions that map objects onto the True and False [Frege, by McGinn] |
3319 | Frege gives a functional account of predication so that we can dispense with predicates [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
9871 | Frege always, and fatally, neglected the domain of quantification [Dummett on Frege] |
16884 | Basic truths of logic are not proved, but seen as true when they are understood [Frege, by Burge] |
3331 | If '5' is the set of all sets with five members, that may be circular, and you can know a priori if the set has content [Benardete,JA on Frege] |
16880 | Frege aimed to discover the logical foundations which justify arithmetical judgements [Frege, by Burge] |
8689 | Eventually Frege tried to found arithmetic in geometry instead of in logic [Frege, by Friend] |
5202 | Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer] |
5657 | Frege's logic showed that there is no concept of being [Frege, by Scruton] |
6523 | Positivists regard ontology as either meaningless or stipulated [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
3318 | Frege made identity a logical notion, enshrined above all in the formula 'for all x, x=x' [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
16885 | To understand a thought, understand its inferential connections to other thoughts [Frege, by Burge] |
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] |
16887 | Frege's concept of 'self-evident' makes no reference to minds [Frege, by Burge] |
16894 | An apriori truth is grounded in generality, which is universal quantification [Frege, by Burge] |
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] |
6524 | Positivists prefer sense-data to objects, because the vocabulary covers both illusions and perceptions [Ayer, by Robinson,H] |
21686 | Sense-data are dubious abstractions, with none of the plausibility of tables [Quine] |
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] |
21685 | Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine] |
5199 | Empiricism, it is said, cannot account for our knowledge of necessary truths [Ayer] |
16882 | The building blocks contain the whole contents of a discipline [Frege] |
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] |
5816 | Frege said concepts were abstract entities, not mental entities [Frege, by Putnam] |
7307 | A thought is not psychological, but a condition of the world that makes a sentence true [Frege, by Miller,A] |
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] |
7309 | Frege's 'sense' is the strict and literal meaning, stripped of tone [Frege, by Miller,A] |
7312 | 'Sense' solves the problems of bearerless names, substitution in beliefs, and informativeness [Frege, by Miller,A] |
7725 | 'P or not-p' seems to be analytic, but does not fit Kant's account, lacking clear subject or predicate [Frege, by Weiner] |
7316 | Analytic truths are those that can be demonstrated using only logic and definitions [Frege, by Miller,A] |
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] |
5208 | A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer] |
3307 | Frege put forward an ontological argument for the existence of numbers [Frege, by Benardete,JA] |
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] |