Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Good and Evil', 'Syntactic Structure' and 'Why there isn't a ready-made world'

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8 ideas

2. Reason / F. Fallacies / 8. Category Mistake / c. Category mistake as semantic
Chomsky established the view that category mistakes are well-formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Metaphysical realism is committed to there being one ultimate true theory [Putnam]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
Shape is essential relative to 'statue', but not essential relative to 'clay' [Putnam]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / b. Nature of sense-data
The old view that sense data are independent of mind is quite dotty [Putnam]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax
Syntax is independent of semantics; sentences can be well formed but meaningless [Chomsky, by Magidor]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / a. Form of the Good
'Good' is an attributive adjective like 'large', not predicative like 'red' [Geach, by Foot]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
An alien might think oxygen was the main cause of a forest fire [Putnam]