56 ideas
5333 | Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan] |
5334 | We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan] |
15592 | The usual Tarskian interpretation of variables is to specify their range of values [Fine,K] |
15593 | Variables can be viewed as special terms - functions taking assignments into individuals [Fine,K] |
15590 | It seemed that Frege gave the syntax for variables, and Tarski the semantics, and that was that [Fine,K] |
15591 | In separate expressions variables seem identical in role, but in the same expression they aren't [Fine,K] |
15595 | The 'algebraic' account of variables reduces quantification to the algebra of its component parts [Fine,K] |
15594 | 'Instantial' accounts of variables say we grasp arbitrary instances from their use in quantification [Fine,K] |
15599 | Cicero/Cicero and Cicero/Tully may differ in relationship, despite being semantically the same [Fine,K] |
9476 | If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis] |
15603 | I can only represent individuals as the same if I do not already represent them as the same [Fine,K] |
15604 | If Cicero=Tully refers to the man twice, then surely Cicero=Cicero does as well? [Fine,K] |
8425 | For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis] |
5340 | Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan] |
5346 | In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan] |
5341 | Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan] |
5351 | We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan] |
5353 | The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan] |
5354 | We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan] |
5349 | For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan] |
5338 | Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan] |
5344 | Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan] |
5332 | People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan] |
5345 | We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan] |
8424 | Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis] |
5343 | People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan] |
5347 | Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan] |
5339 | Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan] |
5342 | Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan] |
5335 | Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan] |
15602 | Mental files are devices for keeping track of basic coordination of objects [Fine,K] |
15588 | You cannot determine the full content from a thought's intrinsic character, as relations are involved [Fine,K] |
15596 | The standard aim of semantics is to assign a semantic value to each expression [Fine,K] |
15587 | That two utterances say the same thing may not be intrinsic to them, but involve their relationships [Fine,K] |
15589 | The two main theories are Holism (which is inferential), and Representational (which is atomistic) [Fine,K] |
15598 | We should pursue semantic facts as stated by truths in theories (and not put the theories first!) [Fine,K] |
15600 | Referentialist semantics has objects for names, properties for predicates, and propositions for connectives [Fine,K] |
15601 | Fregeans approach the world through sense, Referentialists through reference [Fine,K] |
15605 | I take indexicals such as 'this' and 'that' to be linked to some associated demonstration [Fine,K] |
8420 | A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis] |
5348 | Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan] |
5355 | Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan] |
5336 | Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan] |
8405 | A theory of causation should explain why cause precedes effect, not take it for granted [Lewis, by Field,H] |
8427 | I reject making the direction of causation axiomatic, since that takes too much for granted [Lewis] |
10392 | It is just individious discrimination to pick out one cause and label it as 'the' cause [Lewis] |
8419 | The modern regularity view says a cause is a member of a minimal set of sufficient conditions [Lewis] |
8421 | Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis] |
17525 | The counterfactual view says causes are necessary (rather than sufficient) for their effects [Lewis, by Bird] |
17524 | Lewis has basic causation, counterfactuals, and a general ancestral (thus handling pre-emption) [Lewis, by Bird] |
8397 | Counterfactual causation implies all laws are causal, which they aren't [Tooley on Lewis] |
8423 | My counterfactual analysis applies to particular cases, not generalisations [Lewis] |
8426 | One event causes another iff there is a causal chain from first to second [Lewis] |
4795 | Lewis's account of counterfactuals is fine if we know what a law of nature is, but it won't explain the latter [Cohen,LJ on Lewis] |
5350 | The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan] |
5352 | The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan] |