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All the ideas for 'How the Laws of Physics Lie', 'Commentary on 'De Anima'' and 'Propositions'

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28 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 5. Truth Bearers
Are the truth-bearers sentences, utterances, ideas, beliefs, judgements, propositions or statements? [Cartwright,R]
Logicians take sentences to be truth-bearers for rigour, rather than for philosophical reasons [Cartwright,R]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
A token isn't a unique occurrence, as the case of a word or a number shows [Cartwright,R]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N]
Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N]
Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N]
I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N]
You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N]
The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
For any statement, there is no one meaning which any sentence asserting it must have [Cartwright,R]
People don't assert the meaning of the words they utter [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
We can pull apart assertion from utterance, and the action, the event and the subject-matter for each [Cartwright,R]
'It's raining' makes a different assertion on different occasions, but its meaning remains the same [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
We can attribute 'true' and 'false' to whatever it was that was said [Cartwright,R]
To assert that p, it is neither necessary nor sufficient to utter some particular words [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
Assertions, unlike sentence meanings, can be accurate, probable, exaggerated, false.... [Cartwright,R]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / e. Probabilistic causation
A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird]
Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N]
Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N]
There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N]