33 ideas
10528 | Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K] |
11064 | Classes can be reduced to propositional functions [Russell, by Hanna] |
6407 | The class of classes which lack self-membership leads to a contradiction [Russell, by Grayling] |
10529 | If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K] |
10530 | Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K] |
10418 | Type theory seems an extreme reaction, since self-exemplification is often innocuous [Swoyer on Russell] |
10047 | Russell's improvements blocked mathematics as well as paradoxes, and needed further axioms [Russell, by Musgrave] |
23478 | Type theory means that features shared by different levels cannot be expressed [Morris,M on Russell] |
21718 | Ramified types can be defended as a system of intensional logic, with a 'no class' view of sets [Russell, by Linsky,B] |
18126 | A set does not exist unless at least one of its specifications is predicative [Russell, by Bostock] |
18128 | Russell is a conceptualist here, saying some abstracta only exist because definitions create them [Russell, by Bostock] |
18124 | Vicious Circle says if it is expressed using the whole collection, it can't be in the collection [Russell, by Bostock] |
13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
10527 | An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K] |