Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'', 'The Varieties of Necessity' and 'Philosophy and Scientific Image of Man'

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9 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / c. Philosophy as generalisation
Philosophy aims to understand how things (broadly understood) hang together (broadly understood) [Sellars]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K]
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]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations [Sellars]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
Each area of enquiry, and its source, has its own distinctive type of necessity [Fine,K]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 7. Testimony
Unsupported testimony may still be believable [Fine,K]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism
Causation is easier to disrupt than logic, so metaphysics is part of nature, not vice versa [Fine,K]