Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Question of Ontology', 'The Idea of the Brain' and 'The Truth in Relativism'

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


12 ideas

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / c. Fregean numbers
The existence of numbers is not a matter of identities, but of constituents of the world [Fine,K]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 1. Mathematical Platonism / b. Against mathematical platonism
It is plausible that x^2 = -1 had no solutions before complex numbers were 'introduced' [Fine,K]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 4. Mathematical Empiricism / a. Mathematical empiricism
The indispensability argument shows that nature is non-numerical, not the denial of numbers [Fine,K]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
'Exists' is a predicate, not a quantifier; 'electrons exist' is like 'electrons spin' [Fine,K]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 4. Abstract Existence
Just as we introduced complex numbers, so we introduced sums and temporal parts [Fine,K]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
Real objects are those which figure in the facts that constitute reality [Fine,K]
Being real and being fundamental are separate; Thales's water might be real and divisible [Fine,K]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 1. Ontologies
For ontology we need, not internal or external views, but a view from outside reality [Fine,K]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
Ontological claims are often universal, and not a matter of existential quantification [Fine,K]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 8. Brain
There is a single mouse neuron which has 862 inputs and 626 outputs [Cobb]
The brain is not passive, and merely processing inputs; it is active, and intervenes in the world [Cobb]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / f. Ethical non-cognitivism
If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot]