Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Courtier and the Heretic', 'Introduction - Ontology' and 'On Multiplying Entities'

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10 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
8207 The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine]
8208 In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
8205 Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
5500 Biologists see many organic levels, 'abstract' if seen from below, 'structural' if seen from above [Lycan]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
5494 'Lightning is electric discharge' and 'Phosphorus is Venus' are synthetic a posteriori identities [Lycan]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
8206 Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
5496 Functionalism has three linked levels: physical, functional, and mental [Lycan]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 5. Teleological Functionalism
5499 A mental state is a functional realisation of a brain state when it serves the purpose of the organism [Lycan]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 10. Theocracy
7825 The politics of Leibniz was the reunification of Christianity [Stewart,M]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / c. Purpose denied
5501 People are trying to explain biological teleology in naturalistic causal terms [Lycan]