Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'A Realistic Theory of Categories', 'Resurrecting Biological Essentialism' and 'The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme'

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


9 ideas

3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
Saying truths fit experience adds nothing to truth; nothing makes sentences true [Davidson]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
Chisholm divides things into contingent and necessary, and then individuals, states and non-states [Chisholm, by Westerhoff]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 10. Essence as Species
Essentialism concerns the nature of a group, not its category [Devitt]
Things that gradually change, like species, can still have essences [Devitt]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 5. Empiricism Critique
Without the dualism of scheme and content, not much is left of empiricism [Davidson]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
Different points of view make sense, but they must be plotted on a common background [Davidson]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
Criteria of translation give us the identity of conceptual schemes [Davidson]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 5. Species
We name species as small to share properties, but large enough to yield generalisations [Devitt]
Species are phenetic, biological, niche, or phylogenetic-cladistic [Devitt, by PG]