Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Elm and the Expert', 'Existence and Quantification' and 'On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence'

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42 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
A standard naturalist view is realist, externalist, and computationalist, and believes in rationality [Fodor]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
Psychology has to include the idea that mental processes are typically truth-preserving [Fodor]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic
Inferences are surely part of the causal structure of the world [Fodor]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic
Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
The nature of each logical concept is given by a collection of inference rules [Correia]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / b. Being and existence
Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe]
Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
Explain logical necessity by logical consequence, or the other way around? [Correia]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 5. Controlling Beliefs
Control of belief is possible if you know truth conditions and what causes beliefs [Fodor]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment
An experiment is a deliberate version of what informal thinking does all the time [Fodor]
Participation in an experiment requires agreement about what the outcome will mean [Fodor]
We can deliberately cause ourselves to have true thoughts - hence the value of experiments [Fodor]
Interrogation and experiment submit us to having beliefs caused [Fodor]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Theories are links in the causal chain between the environment and our beliefs [Fodor]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / e. Questions about mind
I say psychology is intentional, semantics is informational, and thinking is computation [Fodor]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
We are probably the only creatures that can think about our own thoughts [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
Semantics v syntax is the interaction problem all over again [Fodor]
Cartesians consider interaction to be a miracle [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Type physicalism equates mental kinds with physical kinds [Fodor]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 4. Connectionism
Hume has no theory of the co-ordination of the mind [Fodor]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 2. Propositional Attitudes
Propositional attitudes are propositions presented in a certain way [Fodor]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
Rationality has mental properties - autonomy, productivity, experiment [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
XYZ (Twin Earth 'water') is an impossibility [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
Truth conditions require a broad concept of content [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
Concepts aren't linked to stuff; they are what is caused by stuff [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 10. Causal Semantics
Knowing the cause of a thought is almost knowing its content [Fodor]
18. Thought / C. Content / 12. Informational Semantics
Is content basically information, fixed externally? [Fodor]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
Semantic externalism says the concept 'elm' needs no further beliefs or inferences [Fodor]
If meaning is information, that establishes the causal link between the state of the world and our beliefs [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
To know the content of a thought is to know what would make it true [Fodor]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
For holists no two thoughts are ever quite the same, which destroys faith in meaning [Fodor]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / a. Sense and reference
It is claimed that reference doesn't fix sense (Jocasta), and sense doesn't fix reference (Twin Earth) [Fodor]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 2. Semantics
Broad semantics holds that the basic semantic properties are truth and denotation [Fodor]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 6. Truth-Conditions Semantics
Externalist semantics are necessary to connect the contents of beliefs with how the world is [Fodor]