65 ideas
6095 | The business of metaphysics is to describe the world [Russell] |
2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
6106 | Reducing entities and premisses makes error less likely [Russell] |
2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
6090 | Facts make propositions true or false, and are expressed by whole sentences [Russell] |
18348 | Not only atomic truths, but also general and negative truths, have truth-makers [Russell, by Rami] |
6103 | Normally a class with only one member is a problem, because the class and the member are identical [Russell] |
2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
6092 | In a logically perfect language, there will be just one word for every simple object [Russell] |
6101 | Romulus does not occur in the proposition 'Romulus did not exist' [Russell] |
6102 | You can understand 'author of Waverley', but to understand 'Scott' you must know who it applies to [Russell] |
10423 | There are a set of criteria for pinning down a logically proper name [Russell, by Sainsbury] |
7744 | Treat description using quantifiers, and treat proper names as descriptions [Russell, by McCullogh] |
10426 | A name has got to name something or it is not a name [Russell] |
6104 | Numbers are classes of classes, and hence fictions of fictions [Russell] |
21708 | Russell's new logical atomist was of particulars, universals and facts (not platonic propositions) [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
19051 | Russell's atomic facts are actually compounds, and his true logical atoms are sense data [Russell, by Quine] |
6089 | Logical atomism aims at logical atoms as the last residue of analysis [Russell] |
6100 | Once you have enumerated all the atomic facts, there is a further fact that those are all the facts [Russell] |
6105 | Logical atoms aims to get down to ultimate simples, with their own unique reality [Russell] |
21709 | You can't name all the facts, so they are not real, but are what propositions assert [Russell] |
18376 | Russell asserts atomic, existential, negative and general facts [Russell, by Armstrong] |
5465 | Modern trope theory tries, like logical atomism, to reduce things to elementary states [Russell, by Ellis] |
6060 | 'Existence' means that a propositional function is sometimes true [Russell] |
6099 | Modal terms are properties of propositional functions, not of propositions [Russell] |
6098 | Perception goes straight to the fact, and not through the proposition [Russell] |
2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
2454 | We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor] |
2455 | Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor] |
2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor] |
2461 | An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor] |
2458 | Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor] |
2443 | I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor] |
2453 | We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor] |
2445 | Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor] |
2446 | Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor] |
2464 | Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor] |
2447 | Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor] |
2440 | Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor] |
2450 | Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor] |
6097 | The theory of error seems to need the existence of the non-existent [Russell] |
2437 | XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor] |
2441 | Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor] |
3114 | Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor] |
2452 | Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor] |
2432 | Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor] |
2438 | In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor] |
2439 | Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor] |
2457 | If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor] |
2451 | To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor] |
2433 | For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor] |
2436 | It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor] |
2434 | Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor] |
9022 | Russell uses 'propositional function' to refer to both predicates and to attributes [Quine on Russell] |
2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
6091 | Propositions don't name facts, because each fact corresponds to a proposition and its negation [Russell] |
21702 | In 1918 still believes in nonlinguistic analogues of sentences, but he now calls them 'facts' [Russell, by Quine] |
6094 | An inventory of the world does not need to include propositions [Russell] |
6096 | I no longer believe in propositions, especially concerning falsehoods [Russell] |
21712 | I know longer believe in shadowy things like 'that today is Wednesday' when it is actually Tuesday [Russell] |
6093 | The names in a logically perfect language would be private, and could not be shared [Russell] |
23279 | It is important that a person can change their character, and not just be successive 'selves' [Williams,B] |
23280 | Kantians have an poor account of individuals, and insist on impartiality, because they ignore character [Williams,B] |
23278 | For utilitarians states of affairs are what have value, not matter who produced them [Williams,B] |
6119 | You can discuss 'God exists', so 'God' is a description, not a name [Russell] |