43 ideas
4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
9912 | There are no such things as numbers [Benacerraf] |
9901 | Numbers can't be sets if there is no agreement on which sets they are [Benacerraf] |
9151 | Benacerraf says numbers are defined by their natural ordering [Benacerraf, by Fine,K] |
13891 | To understand finite cardinals, it is necessary and sufficient to understand progressions [Benacerraf, by Wright,C] |
17904 | A set has k members if it one-one corresponds with the numbers less than or equal to k [Benacerraf] |
17906 | To explain numbers you must also explain cardinality, the counting of things [Benacerraf] |
9898 | We can count intransitively (reciting numbers) without understanding transitive counting of items [Benacerraf] |
17903 | Someone can recite numbers but not know how to count things; but not vice versa [Benacerraf] |
9897 | The application of a system of numbers is counting and measurement [Benacerraf] |
9900 | For Zermelo 3 belongs to 17, but for Von Neumann it does not [Benacerraf] |
9899 | The successor of x is either x and all its members, or just the unit set of x [Benacerraf] |
8697 | Disputes about mathematical objects seem irrelevant, and mathematicians cannot resolve them [Benacerraf, by Friend] |
8304 | No particular pair of sets can tell us what 'two' is, just by one-to-one correlation [Benacerraf, by Lowe] |
9906 | If ordinal numbers are 'reducible to' some set-theory, then which is which? [Benacerraf] |
9907 | If any recursive sequence will explain ordinals, then it seems to be the structure which matters [Benacerraf] |
9908 | The job is done by the whole system of numbers, so numbers are not objects [Benacerraf] |
9909 | The number 3 defines the role of being third in a progression [Benacerraf] |
9911 | Number words no more have referents than do the parts of a ruler [Benacerraf] |
8925 | Mathematical objects only have properties relating them to other 'elements' of the same structure [Benacerraf] |
9938 | How can numbers be objects if order is their only property? [Benacerraf, by Putnam] |
9910 | Number-as-objects works wholesale, but fails utterly object by object [Benacerraf] |
9903 | Number words are not predicates, as they function very differently from adjectives [Benacerraf] |
9904 | The set-theory paradoxes mean that 17 can't be the class of all classes with 17 members [Benacerraf] |
9905 | Identity statements make sense only if there are possible individuating conditions [Benacerraf] |
24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
15675 | We don't condemn people for being bad at reasoning [Finlayson] |
15674 | One can universalise good advice, but that doesn't make it an obligation [Finlayson] |
3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
15662 | The 'culture industry' is an advertisement for the way things are [Finlayson] |
6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |
3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |