41 ideas
| 2352 | The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam] |
| 13734 | Modern Quinean metaphysics is about what exists, but Aristotelian metaphysics asks about grounding [Schaffer,J] |
| 13751 | If you tore the metaphysics out of philosophy, the whole enterprise would collapse [Schaffer,J] |
| 13743 | We should not multiply basic entities, but we can have as many derivative entities as we like [Schaffer,J] |
| 2345 | Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam] |
| 2347 | Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam] |
| 14187 | If logic is topic-neutral that means it delves into all subjects, rather than having a pure subject matter [Read] |
| 14188 | Not all arguments are valid because of form; validity is just true premises and false conclusion being impossible [Read] |
| 14182 | If the logic of 'taller of' rests just on meaning, then logic may be the study of merely formal consequence [Read] |
| 14183 | Maybe arguments are only valid when suppressed premises are all stated - but why? [Read] |
| 14184 | In modus ponens the 'if-then' premise contributes nothing if the conclusion follows anyway [Read] |
| 14186 | Logical connectives contain no information, but just record combination relations between facts [Read] |
| 13741 | If 'there are red roses' implies 'there are roses', then 'there are prime numbers' implies 'there are numbers' [Schaffer,J] |
| 13748 | Grounding is unanalysable and primitive, and is the basic structuring concept in metaphysics [Schaffer,J] |
| 13747 | Supervenience is just modal correlation [Schaffer,J] |
| 13744 | The cosmos is the only fundamental entity, from which all else exists by abstraction [Schaffer,J] |
| 2349 | Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam] |
| 13739 | Maybe categories are just the different ways that things depend on basic substances [Schaffer,J] |
| 2351 | Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam] |
| 13742 | There exist heaps with no integral unity, so we should accept arbitrary composites in the same way [Schaffer,J] |
| 13752 | The notion of 'grounding' can explain integrated wholes in a way that mere aggregates can't [Schaffer,J] |
| 14185 | Conditionals are just a shorthand for some proof, leaving out the details [Read] |
| 13749 | Belief in impossible worlds may require dialetheism [Schaffer,J] |
| 13740 | 'Moorean certainties' are more credible than any sceptical argument [Schaffer,J] |
| 2331 | Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam] |
| 2071 | If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam] |
| 2332 | Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam] |
| 2348 | Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam] |
| 2344 | If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam] |
| 2074 | Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam] |
| 2343 | Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam] |
| 2346 | Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam] |
| 2354 | "Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam] |
| 2336 | Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam] |
| 2334 | Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam] |
| 2335 | Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam] |
| 2340 | We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam] |
| 2341 | Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam] |
| 2339 | Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam] |
| 2338 | Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam] |
| 2342 | "Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam] |