61 ideas
| 22659 | It is wisdom to believe what you desire, because belief is needed to achieve it [James] |
| 22657 | All good philosophers start from a dumb conviction about which truths can be revealed [James] |
| 3879 | Philosophy aims to provide a theory of everything [Scruton] |
| 22647 | A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James] |
| 3891 | If p entails q, then p is sufficient for q, and q is necessary for p [Scruton] |
| 22648 | A single explanation must have a single point of view [James] |
| 22644 | Our greatest pleasure is the economy of reducing chaotic facts to one single fact [James] |
| 3894 | We may define 'good' correctly, but then ask whether the application of the definition is good [Scruton] |
| 3883 | A true proposition is consistent with every other true proposition [Scruton] |
| 3884 | The pragmatist does not really have a theory of truth [Scruton] |
| 14273 | Conditional Proof is only valid if we accept the truth-functional reading of 'if' [Edgington] |
| 3907 | Could you be intellectually acquainted with numbers, but unable to count objects? [Scruton] |
| 3908 | If maths contains unprovable truths, then maths cannot be reduced to a set of proofs [Scruton] |
| 22649 | Classification can only ever be for a particular purpose [James] |
| 3906 | If possible worlds are needed to define properties, maybe we should abandon properties [Scruton] |
| 3888 | Hume assumes that necessity can only be de dicto, not de re [Scruton] |
| 14281 | A thing works like formal probability if all the options sum to 100% [Edgington] |
| 14284 | Conclusion improbability can't exceed summed premise improbability in valid arguments [Edgington] |
| 14270 | Simple indicatives about past, present or future do seem to form a single semantic kind [Edgington] |
| 14269 | Maybe forward-looking indicatives are best classed with the subjunctives [Edgington] |
| 14275 | Truth-function problems don't show up in mathematics [Edgington] |
| 14274 | Inferring conditionals from disjunctions or negated conjunctions gives support to truth-functionalism [Edgington] |
| 14276 | The truth-functional view makes conditionals with unlikely antecedents likely to be true [Edgington] |
| 14290 | Doctor:'If patient still alive, change dressing'; Nurse:'Either dead patient, or change dressing'; kills patient! [Edgington] |
| 14271 | Non-truth-functionalist say 'If A,B' is false if A is T and B is F, but deny that is always true for TT,FT and FF [Edgington] |
| 14272 | I say "If you touch that wire you'll get a shock"; you don't touch it. How can that make the conditional true? [Edgington] |
| 14282 | On the supposition view, believe if A,B to the extent that A&B is nearly as likely as A [Edgington] |
| 14278 | Truth-functionalists support some conditionals which we assert, but should not actually believe [Edgington] |
| 14287 | Does 'If A,B' say something different in each context, because of the possibiites there? [Edgington] |
| 3903 | The conceivable can't be a test of the possible, if there are things which are possible but inconceivable [Scruton] |
| 3897 | Epistemology is about the justification of belief, not the definition of knowledge [Scruton] |
| 3881 | In the Cogito argument consciousness develops into self-consciousness [Scruton] |
| 3887 | Maybe our knowledge of truth and causation is synthetic a priori [Scruton] |
| 3901 | Touch only seems to reveal primary qualities [Scruton] |
| 3885 | We only conceive of primary qualities as attached to secondary qualities [Scruton] |
| 3910 | If primary and secondary qualities are distinct, what has the secondary qualities? [Scruton] |
| 3899 | The representational theory says perceptual states are intentional states [Scruton] |
| 3898 | My belief that it will rain tomorrow can't be caused by its raining tomorrow [Scruton] |
| 3880 | Logical positivism avoids scepticism, by closing the gap between evidence and conclusion [Scruton] |
| 3878 | Why should you believe someone who says there are no truths? [Scruton] |
| 22655 | Scientific genius extracts more than other people from the same evidence [James] |
| 22658 | Experimenters assume the theory is true, and stick to it as long as result don't disappoint [James] |
| 22654 | We can't know if the laws of nature are stable, but we must postulate it or assume it [James] |
| 22656 | Trying to assess probabilities by mere calculation is absurd and impossible [James] |
| 22646 | We have a passion for knowing the parts of something, rather than the whole [James] |
| 22652 | The mind has evolved entirely for practical interests, seen in our reflex actions [James] |
| 22651 | Dogs' curiosity only concerns what will happen next [James] |
| 3892 | Every event having a cause, and every event being determined by its cause, are not the same [Scruton] |
| 3911 | The very concept of a substance denies the possibility of mutual interaction and dependence [Scruton] |
| 22650 | How can the ground of rationality be itself rational? [James] |
| 22643 | It seems that we feel rational when we detect no irrationality [James] |
| 3882 | Wittgenstein makes it impossible to build foundations from something that is totally private [Scruton] |
| 22660 | Evolution suggests prevailing or survival as a new criterion of right and wrong [James] |
| 3896 | Any social theory of morality has the problem of the 'free rider', who only pretends to join in [Scruton] |
| 3886 | Membership is the greatest source of obligation [Scruton] |
| 3895 | The categorical imperative is not just individual, but can be used for negotiations between strangers [Scruton] |
| 3890 | 'Cause' used to just mean any valid explanation [Scruton] |
| 22645 | Understanding by means of causes is useless if they are not reduced to a minimum number [James] |
| 3904 | Measuring space requires no movement while I do it [Scruton] |
| 3905 | 'Existence' is not a predicate of 'man', but of the concept of man, saying it has at least one instance [Scruton] |
| 22653 | Early Christianity says God recognises the neglected weak and tender impulses [James] |