94 ideas
20678 | The Scientific Revolution was the discovery of our own ignorance [Harari] |
20686 | For millenia people didn't know how to convert one type of energy into another [Harari] |
13567 | Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis] |
2463 | A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor] |
2435 | Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor] |
13604 | Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis] |
2442 | Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor] |
13606 | Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis] |
13584 | The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis] |
13587 | There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis] |
13577 | Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis] |
9436 | The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis] |
13582 | 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis] |
13580 | Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis] |
13598 | Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis] |
13568 | Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis] |
13586 | Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis] |
13585 | The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis] |
13596 | A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis] |
13599 | Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis] |
13572 | There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis] |
13573 | Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis] |
13571 | Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis] |
13578 | The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis] |
13576 | Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis] |
13570 | Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis] |
2462 | Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor] |
2460 | Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [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] |
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] |
13607 | If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis] |
13597 | Good explanations unify [Ellis] |
13601 | Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis] |
13569 | To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis] |
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] |
13600 | The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis] |
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] |
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] |
2459 | Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor] |
20692 | Money does produce happiness, but only up to a point [Harari] |
20663 | If a group is bound by gossip, the natural size is 150 people [Harari] |
20677 | Since 1500 human population has increased fourteenfold, and consumption far more [Harari] |
20688 | People 300m tons; domesticated animals 700m tons; larger wild animals 100m tons [Harari] |
20674 | The Nazi aim was to encourage progressive evolution, and avoid degeneration [Harari] |
20679 | We stabilise societies with dogmas, either of dubious science, or of non-scientific values [Harari] |
20690 | The state fostered individualism, to break the power of family and community [Harari] |
20689 | In 1750 losing your family and community meant death [Harari] |
20681 | The sacred command of capitalism is that profits must be used to increase production [Harari] |
20682 | The main rule of capitalism is that all other goods depend on economic growth [Harari] |
20683 | The progress of capitalism depends entirely on the new discoveries and gadgets of science [Harari] |
20687 | In capitalism the rich invest, and the rest of us go shopping [Harari] |
20685 | No market is free of political bias, and markets need protection of their freedoms [Harari] |
20693 | Freedom may work against us, as individuals can choose to leave, and make fewer commitments [Harari] |
20691 | Real peace is the implausibility of war (and not just its absence) [Harari] |
20684 | Financing is increasingly through credit rather than taxes; people prefer investing to taxation [Harari] |
20675 | The more you know about history, the harder it becomes to explain [Harari] |
20676 | History teaches us that the present was not inevitable, and shows us the possibilities [Harari] |
13583 | There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis] |
13574 | Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis] |
13575 | If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis] |
13595 | Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis] |
13566 | A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis] |
13579 | What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis] |
13581 | Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis] |
13594 | The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis] |
13603 | A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
20671 | In order to explain both order and evil, a single evil creator is best, but no one favours that [Harari] |
20664 | Animism is belief that every part of nature is aware and feeling, and can communicate [Harari] |
20666 | Most polytheist recognise one supreme power or law, behind the various gods [Harari] |
20667 | Polytheism is open-minded, and rarely persecutes opponents [Harari] |
20665 | Mythologies are usual contracts with the gods, exchanging devotion for control of nature [Harari] |
20669 | Dualist religions see everything as a battleground of good and evil forces [Harari] |
20670 | Dualist religions say the cosmos is a battleground, so can’t explain its order [Harari] |
20673 | Manichaeans and Gnostics: good made spirit, evil made flesh [Harari] |
20668 | Monotheism appeared in Egypt in 1350 BCE, when the god Aten was declared supreme [Harari] |