34 ideas
| 7623 | For ancient Greeks being wise was an ethical value [Putnam] |
| 4714 | Putnam's epistemic notion of truth replaces the realism of correspondence with ontological relativism [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 7617 | Before Kant, all philosophers had a correspondence theory of truth [Putnam] |
| 4716 | The correspondence theory is wrong, because there is no one correspondence between reality and fact [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 7616 | Truth is an idealisation of rational acceptability [Putnam] |
| 14203 | Intension is not meaning, as 'cube' and 'square-faced polyhedron' are intensionally the same [Putnam] |
| 14207 | If cats equal cherries, model theory allows reinterpretation of the whole language preserving truth [Putnam] |
| 14214 | If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis] |
| 14205 | The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam] |
| 7610 | A fact is simply what it is rational to accept [Putnam] |
| 7618 | Very nominalistic philosophers deny properties, though scientists accept them [Putnam] |
| 4718 | If necessity is always relative to a description in a language, then there is only 'de dicto' necessity [Putnam, by O'Grady] |
| 7620 | Some kind of objective 'rightness' is a presupposition of thought itself [Putnam] |
| 18284 | Particulars can be verified or falsified, but general statements can only be falsified (conclusively) [Popper] |
| 14204 | Naïve operationalism would have meanings change every time the tests change [Putnam] |
| 17471 | Using mechanisms as explanatory schemes began in chemistry [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17472 | Thick mechanisms map whole reactions, and thin mechanism chart the steps [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 7611 | Rationality is one part of our conception of human flourishing [Putnam] |
| 14200 | 'Water' on Twin Earth doesn't refer to water, but no mental difference can account for this [Putnam] |
| 7612 | Reference is social not individual, because we defer to experts when referring to elm trees [Putnam] |
| 7613 | Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences [Putnam] |
| 14202 | Neither individual nor community mental states fix reference [Putnam] |
| 14201 | Maybe the total mental state of a language community fixes the reference of a term [Putnam] |
| 14206 | There are infinitely many interpretations of a sentence which can all seem to be 'correct' [Putnam] |
| 7624 | The word 'inconsiderate' nicely shows the blurring of facts and values [Putnam] |
| 17465 | Lavoisier's elements included four types of earth [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17468 | Over 100,000,000 compounds have been discovered or synthesised [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17469 | 'H2O' just gives the element proportions, not the microstructure [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17470 | Water molecules dissociate, and form large polymers, explaining its properties [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17473 | It is unlikely that chemistry will ever be reduced to physics [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17474 | Quantum theory won't tell us which structure a set of atoms will form [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17475 | For temperature to be mean kinetic energy, a state of equilibrium is also required [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17467 | Isotopes (such as those of hydrogen) can vary in their rates of chemical reaction [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| 17466 | Mendeleev systematised the elements, and also gave an account of their nature [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |