Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Realistic Rationalism', 'On Multiplying Entities' and 'Intro to 'Modality and Tense''

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22 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
2510 Traditionally philosophy is an a priori enquiry into general truths about reality [Katz]
2516 Most of philosophy begins where science leaves off [Katz]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
9208 Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy [Fine,K]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
8207 The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine]
8208 In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / b. Against mathematical platonism
2521 'Real' maths objects have no causal role, no determinate reference, and no abstract/concrete distinction [Katz]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
8205 Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete
9210 Possible objects are abstract; actual concrete objects are possible; so abstract/concrete are compatible [Fine,K]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
9211 A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 3. Objects in Thought
9202 Objects, as well as sentences, can have logical form [Fine,K]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities
9206 We must distinguish between the identity or essence of an object, and its necessary features [Fine,K]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
9205 The three basic types of necessity are metaphysical, natural and normative [Fine,K]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
9209 Metaphysical necessity may be 'whatever the circumstance', or 'regardless of circumstances' [Fine,K]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
8206 Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
9200 Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 5. A Priori Synthetic
2513 We don't have a clear enough sense of meaning to pronounce some sentences meaningless or just analytic [Katz]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
2522 Experience cannot teach us why maths and logic are necessary [Katz]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
2517 Structuralists see meaning behaviouristically, and Chomsky says nothing about it [Katz]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference
2519 It is generally accepted that sense is defined as the determiner of reference [Katz]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 5. Fregean Semantics
2520 Sense determines meaning and synonymy, not referential properties like denotation and truth [Katz]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
9207 If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
2518 Sentences are abstract types (like musical scores), not individual tokens [Katz]