Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'unfinished dialogue', 'Thinking About Mechanisms' and 'Beauty: a very short introduction'

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25 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 7. Status of Reason
18543 Do aesthetic reasons count as reasons, if they are rejectable without contradiction? [Scruton]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 2. Defining Truth
18542 Defining truth presupposes that there can be a true definition [Scruton]
3. Truth / D. Coherence Truth / 1. Coherence Truth
4298 All items of possible human knowledge are interconnected, and can be reached by inference [Descartes]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
16562 We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16563 The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
16555 Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
16528 Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16529 Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16530 A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16559 Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
16564 There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
16561 We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
18546 The pleasure taken in beauty also aims at understanding and valuing [Scruton]
18550 Art gives us imaginary worlds which we can view impartially [Scruton]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
18544 Maybe 'beauty' is too loaded, and we should talk of fittingness or harmony [Scruton]
18553 Beauty shows us what we should want in order to achieve human fulfilment [Scruton]
18556 Beauty is rationally founded, inviting meaning, comparison and self-reflection [Scruton]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty
18548 Natural beauty reassures us that the world is where we belong [Scruton]
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 4. Art as Expression
18551 Croce says art makes inarticulate intuitions conscious; rival views say the audience is the main concern [Scruton]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
18541 Beauty (unlike truth and goodness) is questionable as an ultimate value [Scruton]
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality
18554 Prostitution is wrong because it hardens the soul, since soul and body are one [Scruton]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16558 Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]