43 ideas
| 7454 | Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher [Hacking] |
| 8195 | Undecidable statements result from quantifying over infinites, subjunctive conditionals, and the past tense [Dummett] |
| 8194 | Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett] |
| 8190 | Intuitionists rely on the proof of mathematical statements, not their truth [Dummett] |
| 8198 | A 'Cambridge Change' is like saying 'the landscape changes as you travel east' [Dummett] |
| 8192 | I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett] |
| 14308 | We can bring dispositions into existence, as in creating an identifier [Dennett, by Mumford] |
| 7384 | Words are fixed by being attached to similarity clusters, without mention of 'essences' [Dennett] |
| 7447 | Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812 [Hacking] |
| 7448 | Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence) [Hacking] |
| 7449 | Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments [Hacking] |
| 8199 | The existence of a universe without sentience or intelligence is an unintelligible fantasy [Dummett] |
| 7374 | Light wavelengths entering the eye are only indirectly related to object colours [Dennett] |
| 7450 | In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking] |
| 7451 | Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking] |
| 7452 | An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [Hacking, by PG] |
| 7369 | Brains are essentially anticipation machines [Dennett] |
| 7459 | Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths [Hacking] |
| 7393 | We can't draw a clear line between conscious and unconscious [Dennett] |
| 7367 | Perhaps the brain doesn't 'fill in' gaps in consciousness if no one is looking. [Dennett] |
| 7394 | Conscious events can only be explained in terms of unconscious events [Dennett] |
| 7391 | We can know a lot of what it is like to be a bat, and nothing important is unknown [Dennett] |
| 7387 | "Qualia" can be replaced by complex dispositional brain states [Dennett] |
| 7376 | We can't assume that dispositions will remain normal when qualia have been inverted [Dennett] |
| 7372 | In peripheral vision we see objects without their details, so blindsight is not that special [Dennett] |
| 7373 | Blindsight subjects glean very paltry information [Dennett] |
| 7385 | People accept blurred boundaries in many things, but insist self is All or Nothing [Dennett] |
| 7383 | The psychological self is an abstraction, not a thing in the brain [Dennett] |
| 7386 | Selves are not soul-pearls, but artefacts of social processes [Dennett] |
| 7381 | We tell stories about ourselves, to protect, control and define who we are [Dennett] |
| 7382 | We spin narratives about ourselves, and the audience posits a centre of gravity for them [Dennett] |
| 7370 | The brain is controlled by shifting coalitions, guided by good purposeful habits [Dennett] |
| 7379 | If an epiphenomenon has no physical effects, it has to be undetectable [Dennett] |
| 7365 | Dualism wallows in mystery, and to accept it is to give up [Dennett] |
| 7371 | All functionalism is 'homuncular', of one grain size or another [Dennett] |
| 7366 | It is arbitrary to say which moment of brain processing is conscious [Dennett] |
| 7380 | Visual experience is composed of neural activity, which we find pleasing [Dennett] |
| 8193 | Verification is not an individual but a collective activity [Dummett] |
| 8189 | Truth-condition theorists must argue use can only be described by appeal to conditions of truth [Dummett] |
| 8191 | The truth-conditions theory must get agreement on a conception of truth [Dummett] |
| 7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
| 8197 | Maybe past (which affects us) and future (which we can affect) are both real [Dummett] |
| 8196 | The present cannot exist alone as a mere boundary; past and future truths are rendered meaningless [Dummett] |