Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On Duties ('De Officiis')', 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction'' and 'Five Milestones of Empiricism'

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


12 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
Cicero sees wisdom in terms of knowledge, but earlier Stoics saw it as moral [Cicero, by Long]
1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 2. Wise People
Unfortunately we choose a way of life before we are old enough to think clearly [Cicero]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition
Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine]
Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine]
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]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine]
Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique
Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability
The essence of propriety is consistency [Cicero]