55 ideas
21616 | Truth and falsity apply to suppositions as well as to assertions [Williamson] |
21623 | True and false are not symmetrical; false is more complex, involving negation [Williamson] |
21602 | Many-valued logics don't solve vagueness; its presence at the meta-level is ignored [Williamson] |
21611 | Formal semantics defines validity as truth preserved in every model [Williamson] |
21606 | 'Bivalence' is the meta-linguistic principle that 'A' in the object language is true or false [Williamson] |
21605 | Excluded Middle is 'A or not A' in the object language [Williamson] |
21612 | Or-elimination is 'Argument by Cases'; it shows how to derive C from 'A or B' [Williamson] |
21599 | A sorites stops when it collides with an opposite sorites [Williamson] |
21589 | When bivalence is rejected because of vagueness, we lose classical logic [Williamson] |
21596 | Vagueness undermines the stable references needed by logic [Williamson] |
21601 | A vague term can refer to very precise elements [Williamson] |
21629 | Equally fuzzy objects can be identical, so fuzziness doesn't entail vagueness [Williamson] |
21591 | Vagueness is epistemic. Statements are true or false, but we often don't know which [Williamson] |
21619 | If a heap has a real boundary, omniscient speakers would agree where it is [Williamson] |
21620 | The epistemic view says that the essence of vagueness is ignorance [Williamson] |
21622 | If there is a true borderline of which we are ignorant, this drives a wedge between meaning and use [Williamson] |
9120 | Vagueness in a concept is its indiscriminability from other possible concepts [Williamson] |
21625 | The vagueness of 'heap' can remain even when the context is fixed [Williamson] |
21614 | The 'nihilist' view of vagueness says that 'heap' is not a legitimate concept [Williamson] |
21617 | We can say propositions are bivalent, but vague utterances don't express a proposition [Williamson] |
21618 | If the vague 'TW is thin' says nothing, what does 'TW is thin if his perfect twin is thin' say? [Williamson] |
21590 | Asking when someone is 'clearly' old is higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
21592 | Supervaluation keeps classical logic, but changes the truth in classical semantics [Williamson] |
21603 | You can't give a precise description of a language which is intrinsically vague [Williamson] |
21604 | Supervaluation assigns truth when all the facts are respected [Williamson] |
21607 | Supervaluation has excluded middle but not bivalence; 'A or not-A' is true, even when A is undecided [Williamson] |
21608 | Truth-functionality for compound statements fails in supervaluation [Williamson] |
21609 | Supervaluationism defines 'supertruth', but neglects it when defining 'valid' [Williamson] |
21610 | Supervaluation adds a 'definitely' operator to classical logic [Williamson] |
21613 | Supervaluationism cannot eliminate higher-order vagueness [Williamson] |
21633 | Nominalists suspect that properties etc are our projections, and could have been different [Williamson] |
21630 | If fuzzy edges are fine, then why not fuzzy temporal, modal or mereological boundaries? [Williamson] |
21632 | A river is not just event; it needs actual and counterfactual boundaries [Williamson] |
21621 | We can't infer metaphysical necessities to be a priori knowable - or indeed knowable in any way [Williamson] |
21627 | We have inexact knowledge when we include margins of error [Williamson] |
22868 | The value and truth of knowledge are measured by success in activity [Dewey] |
21626 | Knowing you know (KK) is usually denied if the knowledge concept is missing, or not considered [Williamson] |
22865 | Habits constitute the self [Dewey] |
21631 | To know, believe, hope or fear, one must grasp the thought, but not when you fail to do them [Williamson] |
21600 | 'Blue' is not a family resemblance, because all the blues resemble in some respect [Williamson] |
21615 | References to the 'greatest prime number' have no reference, but are meaningful [Williamson] |
18038 | The 't' and 'f' of formal semantics has no philosophical interest, and may not refer to true and false [Williamson] |
21624 | It is known that there is a cognitive loss in identifying propositions with possible worlds [Williamson] |
22871 | The good people are those who improve; the bad are those who deteriorate [Dewey] |
22876 | Democracy is the development of human nature when it shares in the running of communal activities [Dewey] |
22875 | Democracy is not just a form of government; it is a mode of shared living [Dewey] |
22874 | Individuality is only developed within groups [Dewey] |
4061 | The right to life is not a right not to be killed, but not to be killed unjustly [Thomson] |
4057 | A newly fertilized ovum is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree [Thomson] |
4695 | Maybe abortion can be justified despite the foetus having full human rights [Thomson, by Foot] |
4059 | It can't be murder for a mother to perform an abortion on herself to save her own life [Thomson] |
4696 | The foetus is safe in the womb, so abortion initiates its death, with the mother as the agent. [Foot on Thomson] |
4058 | Is someone's right to life diminished if they were conceived by a rape? [Thomson] |
4060 | The right to life does not bestow the right to use someone else's body to support that life [Thomson] |
4062 | No one is morally required to make huge sacrifices to keep someone else alive for nine months [Thomson] |