47 ideas
5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
8964 | Entities can be multiplied either by excessive categories, or excessive entities within a category [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
18986 | Truth is just a name for verification-processes [James] |
18983 | In many cases there is no obvious way in which ideas can agree with their object [James] |
18972 | Ideas are true in so far as they co-ordinate our experiences [James] |
18973 | New opinions count as 'true' if they are assimilated to an individual's current beliefs [James] |
18984 | True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify (and false otherwise) [James] |
8962 | 'There are shapes which are never exemplified' is the toughest example for nominalists [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
8961 | Nominalists are motivated by Ockham's Razor and a distrust of unobservables [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
18987 | A 'thing' is simply carved out of reality for human purposes [James] |
18981 | 'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James] |
8963 | Four theories of possible worlds: conceptualist, combinatorial, abstract, or concrete [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
18974 | Truth is a species of good, being whatever proves itself good in the way of belief [James] |
18989 | Pragmatism accepts any hypothesis which has useful consequences [James] |
5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
18971 | Theories are practical tools for progress, not answers to enigmas [James] |
18985 | True thoughts are just valuable instruments of action [James] |
18982 | Pragmatism says all theories are instrumental - that is, mental modes of adaptation to reality [James] |
5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
18975 | We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences [James] |
5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
18980 | If there is a 'greatest knower', it doesn't follow that they know absolutely everything [James] |
18978 | It is hard to grasp a cosmic mind which produces such a mixture of goods and evils [James] |
18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
18977 | The wonderful design of a woodpecker looks diabolical to its victims [James] |
18979 | Things with parts always have some structure, so they always appear to be designed [James] |
18976 | Private experience is the main evidence for God [James] |
5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
18990 | Nirvana means safety from sense experience, and hindus and buddhists are just afraid of life [James] |
5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |