Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'', 'On Copernicanism and Relativity of Motion' and 'Moral Thinking: Its Levels,Method and Point'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


11 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 8. Subjective Truth
Choose the true hypothesis, which is the most intelligible one [Leibniz]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / d. Hume's Principle
If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K]
Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / a. Best explanation
The Copernican theory is right because it is the only one offering a good explanation [Leibniz]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
Hare says I acquire an agglomeration of preferences by role-reversal, leading to utilitarianism [Hare, by Williams,B]
If we have to want the preferences of the many, we have to abandon our own deeply-held views [Williams,B on Hare]
If morality is to be built on identification with the preferences of others, I must agree with their errors [Williams,B on Hare]
A judgement is presciptive if we expect it to be acted on [Hare]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 8. Contract Strategies
By far the easiest way of seeming upright is to be upright [Hare]