Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Philosophical Explanations', 'Causation' and 'Lives of Eminent Philosophers'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

24 ideas

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
3035 Dialectic involves conversations with short questions and brief answers [Diog. Laertius]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
9476 If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
8425 For true counterfactuals, both antecedent and consequent true is closest to actuality [Lewis]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
3570 Maybe knowledge is belief which 'tracks' the truth [Nozick, by Williams,M]
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 2. Justification Challenges / a. Agrippa's trilemma
1816 Sceptics say demonstration depends on self-demonstrating things, or indemonstrable things [Diog. Laertius]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 4. Tracking the Facts
2748 A true belief isn't knowledge if it would be believed even if false. It should 'track the truth' [Nozick, by Dancy,J]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
1819 Scepticism has two dogmas: that nothing is definable, and every argument has an opposite argument [Diog. Laertius]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
3064 When sceptics say that nothing is definable, or all arguments have an opposite, they are being dogmatic [Diog. Laertius]
14. Science / C. Induction / 4. Reason in Induction
3033 Induction moves from some truths to similar ones, by contraries or consequents [Diog. Laertius]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
8424 Determinism says there can't be two identical worlds up to a time, with identical laws, which then differ [Lewis]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / b. Propositions as possible worlds
8420 A proposition is a set of possible worlds where it is true [Lewis]
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / b. Types of pleasure
1838 Cyrenaic pleasure is a motion, but Epicurean pleasure is a condition [Diog. Laertius]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
1769 Cynics believe that when a man wishes for nothing he is like the gods [Diog. Laertius]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation
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]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
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]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
8421 Regularity analyses could make c an effect of e, or an epiphenomenon, or inefficacious, or pre-empted [Lewis]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
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]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 9. Counterfactual Claims
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]