44 ideas
1642 | We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato] |
9766 | Study vagueness first by its logic, then by its truth-conditions, and then its metaphysics [Fine,K] |
1645 | The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato] |
1644 | Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato] |
287 | Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato] |
20478 | In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato] |
9775 | Excluded Middle, and classical logic, may fail for vague predicates [Fine,K] |
9771 | Logic holding between indefinite sentences is the core of all language [Fine,K] |
11278 | What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato] |
1643 | If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato] |
7022 | To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato] |
1641 | Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato] |
9768 | Vagueness is semantic, a deficiency of meaning [Fine,K] |
9776 | A thing might be vaguely vague, giving us higher-order vagueness [Fine,K] |
9767 | A vague sentence is only true for all ways of making it completely precise [Fine,K] |
9770 | Logical connectives cease to be truth-functional if vagueness is treated with three values [Fine,K] |
9772 | Meaning is both actual (determining instances) and potential (possibility of greater precision) [Fine,K] |
9773 | With the super-truth approach, the classical connectives continue to work [Fine,K] |
9774 | Borderline cases must be under our control, as capable of greater precision [Fine,K] |
10784 | Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato] |
16185 | Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N] |
16122 | Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato] |
10422 | The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato] |
15855 | If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato] |
9769 | Vagueness can be in predicates, names or quantifiers [Fine,K] |
1637 | A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato] |
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] |
1636 | Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato] |
1638 | Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato] |
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] |