Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Explanation and Reference', 'Being You' and 'Against the Physicists (two books)'

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33 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
17505 Using proper names properly doesn't involve necessary and sufficient conditions [Putnam]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
22744 Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
11908 Putnam bases essences on 'same kind', but same kinds may not share properties [Mackie,P on Putnam]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
22748 Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science
17508 Science aims at truth, not at 'simplicity' [Putnam]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain
23514 The cerbellum has a huge number of neurons, but little involvement in consciousness [Seth]
23513 Single neurons can carry out complex functions [Seth]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
23516 Maybe a system is conscious if the whole generates more information than its parts [Seth]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
22746 If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
23519 The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
22741 The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / a. Artificial Intelligence
23518 Modern AI is mostly machine-based pattern recognition [Seth]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
17506 I now think reference by the tests of experts is a special case of being causally connected [Putnam]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
23517 Volition is felt as doing what you want, with possible alternatives, and a source from within [Seth]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / d. Biological ethics
23515 Human exceptionalism plagues biology, and most other human thinking [Seth]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 5. Reference to Natural Kinds
17507 Natural kind stereotypes are 'strong' (obvious, like tiger) or 'weak' (obscure, like molybdenum) [Putnam]
11904 Express natural kinds as a posteriori predicate connections, not as singular terms [Putnam, by Mackie,P]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
22747 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
22749 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
22750 Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
22742 Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
22751 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
22730 All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
22739 God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
22738 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
22734 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
22736 God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
22740 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
22735 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
22732 The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
22728 Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
22737 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
22731 It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]