64 ideas
| 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] |
| 9847 | A contextual definition permits the elimination of the expression by a substitution [Dummett] |
| 6276 | 'The rug is green' might be warrantedly assertible even though the rug is not green [Putnam] |
| 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] |
| 9820 | In classical logic, logical truths are valid formulas; in higher-order logics they are purely logical [Dummett] |
| 9896 | A prime number is one which is measured by a unit alone [Dummett] |
| 18255 | Addition of quantities is prior to ordering, as shown in cyclic domains like angles [Dummett] |
| 9895 | A number is a multitude composed of units [Dummett] |
| 9852 | We understand 'there are as many nuts as apples' as easily by pairing them as by counting them [Dummett] |
| 9829 | The identity of a number may be fixed by something outside structure - by counting [Dummett] |
| 9828 | Numbers aren't fixed by position in a structure; it won't tell you whether to start with 0 or 1 [Dummett] |
| 9876 | Set theory isn't part of logic, and why reduce to something more complex? [Dummett] |
| 4986 | A weaker kind of reductionism than direct translation is the use of 'bridge laws' [Kirk,R] |
| 9884 | The distinction of concrete/abstract, or actual/non-actual, is a scale, not a dichotomy [Dummett] |
| 6280 | Realism is a theory, which explains the convergence of science and the success of language [Putnam] |
| 9869 | Realism is just the application of two-valued semantics to sentences [Dummett] |
| 9880 | Nominalism assumes unmediated mental contact with objects [Dummett] |
| 9885 | The existence of abstract objects is a pseudo-problem [Dummett] |
| 9858 | Abstract objects nowadays are those which are objective but not actual [Dummett] |
| 9859 | It is absurd to deny the Equator, on the grounds that it lacks causal powers [Dummett] |
| 9860 | 'We've crossed the Equator' has truth-conditions, so accept the Equator - and it's an object [Dummett] |
| 9872 | Abstract objects need the context principle, since they can't be encountered directly [Dummett] |
| 9848 | Content is replaceable if identical, so replaceability can't define identity [Dummett, by Dummett] |
| 9842 | Frege introduced criteria for identity, but thought defining identity was circular [Dummett] |
| 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] |
| 5001 | Maybe we should see intentionality and consciousness as a single problem, not two [Kirk,R] |
| 4993 | If a bird captures a worm, we could say its behaviour is 'about' the worm [Kirk,R] |
| 5000 | Behaviourism says intentionality is an external relation; language of thought says it's internal [Kirk,R] |
| 4982 | Dualism implies some brain events with no physical cause, and others with no physical effect [Kirk,R] |
| 4991 | Behaviourism seems a good theory for intentional states, but bad for phenomenal ones [Kirk,R] |
| 4994 | Behaviourism offers a good alternative to simplistic unitary accounts of mental relationships [Kirk,R] |
| 4992 | In 'holistic' behaviourism we say a mental state is a complex of many dispositions [Kirk,R] |
| 4990 | The inverted spectrum idea is often regarded as an objection to behaviourism [Kirk,R] |
| 4984 | All meaningful psychological statements can be translated into physics [Kirk,R] |
| 4998 | Instead of representation by sentences, it can be by a distribution of connectionist strengths [Kirk,R] |
| 4985 | If mental states are multiply realisable, they could not be translated into physical terms [Kirk,R] |
| 4997 | It seems unlikely that most concepts are innate, if a theory must be understood to grasp them [Kirk,R] |
| 9849 | Maybe a concept is 'prior' to another if it can be defined without the second concept [Dummett] |
| 9850 | An argument for conceptual priority is greater simplicity in explanation [Dummett] |
| 9873 | Abstract terms are acceptable as long as we know how they function linguistically [Dummett] |
| 9993 | There is no reason why abstraction by equivalence classes should be called 'logical' [Dummett, by Tait] |
| 9857 | We arrive at the concept 'suicide' by comparing 'Cato killed Cato' with 'Brutus killed Brutus' [Dummett] |
| 9833 | To abstract from spoons (to get the same number as the forks), the spoons must be indistinguishable too [Dummett] |
| 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] |
| 4999 | For behaviourists language is just a special kind of behaviour [Kirk,R] |
| 6271 | How reference is specified is not what reference is [Putnam] |
| 4995 | Behaviourists doubt whether reference is a single type of relation [Kirk,R] |
| 6268 | The claim that scientific terms are incommensurable can be blocked if scientific terms are not descriptions [Putnam] |
| 9836 | Fregean semantics assumes a domain articulated into individual objects [Dummett] |
| 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] |
| 18257 | Why should the limit of measurement be points, not intervals? [Dummett] |