Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Thinking About Mechanisms', 'The Thought: a Logical Enquiry' and 'Coherence: The Price is Right'

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33 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 5. Objectivity
There exists a realm, beyond objects and ideas, of non-spatio-temporal thoughts [Frege, by Weiner]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
Coherence problems have positive and negative restraints; solutions maximise constraint satisfaction [Thagard]
Coherence is explanatory, deductive, conceptual, analogical, perceptual, and deliberative [Thagard]
Explanatory coherence needs symmetry,explanation,analogy,data priority, contradiction,competition,acceptance [Thagard]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
The word 'true' seems to be unique and indefinable [Frege]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude comes from including more phenomena, and revealing what underlies [Thagard]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
There cannot be complete correspondence, because ideas and reality are quite different [Frege]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth
The property of truth in 'It is true that I smell violets' adds nothing to 'I smell violets' [Frege]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
Thoughts in the 'third realm' cannot be sensed, and do not need an owner to exist [Frege]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / c. Facts and truths
A fact is a thought that is true [Frege]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 3. Objects in Thought
Late Frege saw his non-actual objective objects as exclusively thoughts and senses [Frege, by Dummett]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Neither a priori rationalism nor sense data empiricism account for scientific knowledge [Thagard]
14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem
Bayesian inference is forced to rely on approximations [Thagard]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / a. Best explanation
The best theory has the highest subjective (Bayesian) probability? [Thagard]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
We grasp thoughts (thinking), decide they are true (judgement), and manifest the judgement (assertion) [Frege]
Thoughts have their own realm of reality - 'sense' (as opposed to the realm of 'reference') [Frege, by Dummett]
A thought is distinguished from other things by a capacity to be true or false [Frege, by Dummett]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought
Thoughts about myself are understood one way to me, and another when communicated [Frege]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / a. Propositions as sense
A 'thought' is something for which the question of truth can arise; thoughts are senses of sentences [Frege]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 5. Unity of Propositions
A sentence is only a thought if it is complete, and has a time-specification [Frege]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]