Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'How the Laws of Physics Lie', 'Critique of the Gotha Program' and 'Lewis: reduction of mind (on himself)'

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34 ideas

2. Reason / E. Argument / 1. Argument
Arguments are nearly always open to challenge, but they help to explain a position rather than force people to believe [Lewis]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth [Lewis]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / b. Types of supervenience
Where pixels make up a picture, supervenience is reduction [Lewis]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
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]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / b. Purpose of mind
A mind is an organ of representation [Lewis]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 2. Reduction of Mind
I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology makes good predictions, by associating mental states with causal roles [Lewis]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 4. Language of Thought
Folk psychology doesn't say that there is a language of thought [Lewis]
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
If you don't share an external world with a brain-in-a-vat, then externalism says you don't share any beliefs [Lewis]
Nothing shows that all content is 'wide', or that wide content has logical priority [Lewis]
A spontaneous duplicate of you would have your brain states but no experience, so externalism would deny him any beliefs [Lewis]
Wide content derives from narrow content and relationships with external things [Lewis]
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 4. Changing the State / c. Revolution
In moving from capitalism to communism a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is needed [Marx]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need [Marx]
People who only have their labour power are the slaves of those permitting them to work [Marx]
Freedom is making the state subordinate to its society [Marx]
25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 2. Freedom of belief
Bourgeois 'freedom of conscience' just tolerates all sorts of religious intolerance [Marx]
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]