66 ideas
| 18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
| 18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
| 18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
| 18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
| 6267 | A culture needs to admit that knowledge is more extensive than just 'science' [Putnam] |
| 6272 | 'True' and 'refers' cannot be made scientically precise, but are fundamental to science [Putnam] |
| 6276 | 'The rug is green' might be warrantedly assertible even though the rug is not green [Putnam] |
| 18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
| 18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
| 6266 | We need the correspondence theory of truth to understand language and science [Putnam] |
| 6277 | Correspondence between concepts and unconceptualised reality is impossible [Putnam] |
| 6264 | In Tarski's definition, you understand 'true' if you accept the notions of the object language [Putnam] |
| 6265 | Tarski has given a correct account of the formal logic of 'true', but there is more to the concept [Putnam] |
| 6269 | Only Tarski has found a way to define 'true' [Putnam] |
| 18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
| 18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
| 6280 | Realism is a theory, which explains the convergence of science and the success of language [Putnam] |
| 18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
| 18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
| 18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
| 18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
| 18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
| 18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
| 18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
| 18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
| 18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
| 18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
| 18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
| 18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
| 18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
| 18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
| 18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
| 18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
| 18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
| 18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
| 18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
| 18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
| 18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
| 6284 | If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam] |
| 6273 | Knowledge depends on believing others, which must be innate, as inferences are not strong enough [Putnam] |
| 6274 | Empathy may not give knowledge, but it can give plausibility or right opinion [Putnam] |
| 17084 | You can't decide which explanations are good if you don't attend to the interest-relative aspects [Putnam] |
| 18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
| 18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
| 18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
| 18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
| 18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
| 6282 | Theory of meaning presupposes theory of understanding and reference [Putnam] |
| 6281 | Truth conditions can't explain understanding a sentence, because that in turn needs explanation [Putnam] |
| 6278 | We should reject the view that truth is prior to meaning [Putnam] |
| 6271 | How reference is specified is not what reference is [Putnam] |
| 6268 | The claim that scientific terms are incommensurable can be blocked if scientific terms are not descriptions [Putnam] |
| 18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
| 6279 | A private language could work with reference and beliefs, and wouldn't need meaning [Putnam] |
| 6270 | The correct translation is the one that explains the speaker's behaviour [Putnam] |
| 6283 | Language maps the world in many ways (because it maps onto other languages in many ways) [Putnam] |
| 6275 | You can't say 'most speaker's beliefs are true'; in some areas this is not so, and you can't count beliefs [Putnam] |
| 18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
| 5996 | Critolaus redefined Aristotle's moral aim as fulfilment instead of happiness [Critolaus, by White,SA] |
| 18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
| 18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
| 18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
| 18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
| 18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |