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All the ideas for 'The Problem of the Soul', 'Evidence' and 'Language,Truth and Logic'

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74 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
Philosophy needs wisdom about who we are, as well as how we ought to be [Flanagan]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
Philosophy is a department of logic [Ayer]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Philosophers should abandon speculation, as philosophy is wholly critical [Ayer]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
Humeans rejected the a priori synthetic, and so rejected even Kantian metaphysics [Ayer, by Macdonald,C]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
Critics say analysis can only show the parts, and not their distinctive configuration [Ayer]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
We resist science partly because it can't provide ethical wisdom [Flanagan]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
Philosophy deals with the questions that scientists do not wish to handle [Ayer]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 2. Deflationary Truth
We cannot analyse the concept of 'truth', because it is simply a mark that a sentence is asserted [Ayer]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism
Maths and logic are true universally because they are analytic or tautological [Ayer]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 1. Ontologies
Positivists regard ontology as either meaningless or stipulated [Ayer, by Robinson,H]
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty
Only tautologies can be certain; other propositions can only be probable [Ayer]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
Logical positivists could never give the sense-data equivalent of 'there is a table next door' [Robinson,H on Ayer]
Material things are constructions from actual and possible occurrences of sense-contents [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities
We could verify 'a thing can't be in two places at once' by destroying one of the things [Ierubino on Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 5. A Priori Synthetic
Whether geometry can be applied to reality is an empirical question outside of geometry [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 7. A Priori from Convention
By changing definitions we could make 'a thing can't be in two places at once' a contradiction [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
Positivists prefer sense-data to objects, because the vocabulary covers both illusions and perceptions [Ayer, by Robinson,H]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 7. Causal Perception
Causal and representative theories of perception are wrong as they refer to unobservables [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
The main claim of rationalism is that thought is an independent source of knowledge [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Empiricism lacked a decent account of the a priori, until Ayer said it was entirely analytic [O'Grady on Ayer]
All propositions (especially 'metaphysics') must begin with the senses [Ayer]
My empiricism logically distinguishes analytic and synthetic propositions, and metaphysical verbiage [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 4. Pro-Empiricism
It is further sense-experience which informs us of the mistakes that arise out of sense-experience [Ayer]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
Empiricism, it is said, cannot account for our knowledge of necessary truths [Ayer]
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 3. Internal or External / a. Pro-internalism
Internalists are much more interested in evidence than externalists are [McGrew]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
Does spotting a new possibility count as evidence? [McGrew]
Absence of evidence proves nothing, and weird claims need special evidence [McGrew]
Every event is highly unlikely (in detail), but may be perfectly plausible [McGrew]
Criminal law needs two separate witnesses, but historians will accept one witness [McGrew]
Maybe all evidence consists of beliefs, rather than of facts [McGrew]
If all evidence is propositional, what is the evidence for the proposition? Do we face a regress? [McGrew]
Several unreliable witnesses can give good support, if they all say the same thing [McGrew]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / b. Evidentialism
Narrow evidentialism relies wholly on propositions; the wider form includes other items [McGrew]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
Explanation does not entail prediction [Flanagan]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification
Falsificationism would be naive if even a slight discrepancy in evidence killed a theory [McGrew]
14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction
The induction problem is to prove generalisations about the future based on the past [Ayer]
14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
We can't use the uniformity of nature to prove induction, as that would be circular [Ayer]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 3. Mental Causation
In the 17th century a collisionlike view of causation made mental causation implausible [Flanagan]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / b. Scepticism of other minds
Other minds are 'metaphysical' objects, because I can never observe their experiences [Ayer]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy
Only you can have your subjective experiences because only you are hooked up to your nervous system [Flanagan]
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 5. Self as Associations
If the self is meaningful, it must be constructed from sense-experiences [Ayer]
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 7. Self and Body / a. Self needs body
Two experiences belong to one self if their contents belong with one body [Ayer]
Empiricists can define personal identity as bodily identity, which consists of sense-contents [Ayer]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
We only have a sense of our self as continuous, not as exactly the same [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 3. Narrative Self
The self is an abstraction which magnifies important aspects of autobiography [Flanagan]
We are not born with a self; we develop a self through living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
For Buddhists a fixed self is a morally dangerous illusion [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Normal free will claims control of what I do, but a stronger view claims control of thought and feeling [Flanagan]
Free will is held to give us a whole list of desirable capacities for living [Flanagan]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
People believe they have free will that circumvents natural law, but only an incorporeal mind could do this [Flanagan]
We only think of ourselves as having free will because we first thought of God that way [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 8. Dualism of Mind Critique
The supposed 'gulf' between mind and matter is based on the senseless concept of 'substances' [Ayer]
People largely came to believe in dualism because it made human agents free [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 4. Behaviourism Critique
Behaviourism notoriously has nothing to say about mental causation [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 2. Anomalous Monism
Cars and bodies obey principles of causation, without us knowing any 'strict laws' about them [Flanagan]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
Physicalism doesn't deny that the essence of an experience is more than its neural realiser [Flanagan]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / f. Emotion and reason
Emotions are usually very apt, rather than being non-rational and fickle [Flanagan]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
A sentence is factually significant to someone if they know how to verify its proposition [Ayer]
Factual propositions imply (in conjunction with a few other premises) possible experiences [Ayer]
Tautologies and empirical hypotheses form the entire class of significant propositions [Ayer]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / b. Intellectualism
Intellectualism admires the 'principled actor', non-intellectualism admires the 'good character' [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / e. Ethical cognitivism
Cognitivists think morals are discovered by reason [Flanagan]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
Moral intuition is worthless if there is no criterion to decide between intuitions [Ayer]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
Ayer defends the emotivist version of expressivism [Ayer, by Smith,M]
To say an act is wrong makes no further statement about it, but merely expresses disapproval [Ayer]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / a. Normativity
Ethics is the science of the conditions that lead to human flourishing [Flanagan]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 4. Divine Contradictions
A person with non-empirical attributes is unintelligible. [Ayer]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
When we ascribe an attribute to a thing, we covertly assert that it exists [Ayer]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
If theism is non-sensical, then so is atheism. [Ayer]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 3. Hinduism
The Hindu doctrine of reincarnation only appeared in the eighth century CE [Flanagan]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / c. Religious Verification
The 'truths' expressed by theists are not literally significant [Ayer]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / b. Soul
The idea of the soul gets some support from the scientific belief in essential 'natural kinds' [Flanagan]