48 ideas
| 1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
| 8455 | Canonical notation needs quantification, variables and predicates, but not names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8456 | Quine extended Russell's defining away of definite descriptions, to also define away names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
| 1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [Quine] |
| 1616 | Formalism says maths is built of meaningless notations; these build into rules which have meaning [Quine] |
| 1615 | Intuitionism says classes are invented, and abstract entities are constructed from specified ingredients [Quine] |
| 1614 | Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made [Quine] |
| 10241 | For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
| 19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
| 5060 | All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz] |
| 12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
| 8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
| 1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
| 8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
| 16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
| 7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
| 16185 | Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N] |
| 1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
| 15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
| 4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
| 8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
| 8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
| 12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
| 18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
| 16182 | Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N] |
| 16184 | An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N] |
| 16167 | Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N] |
| 16169 | Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N] |
| 16171 | The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N] |
| 16176 | Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N] |
| 16177 | I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N] |
| 16180 | You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N] |
| 16183 | In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N] |
| 1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
| 1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
| 1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
| 19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
| 5059 | Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz] |
| 16175 | A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N] |
| 6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
| 16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
| 16179 | Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N] |
| 16178 | There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N] |
| 16170 | To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N] |
| 16181 | Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N] |