80 ideas
7001 | If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil] |
6267 | A culture needs to admit that knowledge is more extensive than just 'science' [Putnam] |
6272 | 'True' and 'refers' cannot be made scientically precise, but are fundamental to science [Putnam] |
7038 | A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil] |
7037 | Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil] |
6276 | 'The rug is green' might be warrantedly assertible even though the rug is not green [Putnam] |
7004 | The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil] |
6266 | We need the correspondence theory of truth to understand language and science [Putnam] |
6277 | Correspondence between concepts and unconceptualised reality is impossible [Putnam] |
6264 | In Tarski's definition, you understand 'true' if you accept the notions of the object language [Putnam] |
6265 | Tarski has given a correct account of the formal logic of 'true', but there is more to the concept [Putnam] |
6269 | Only Tarski has found a way to define 'true' [Putnam] |
7035 | God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil] |
7017 | The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil] |
7003 | There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil] |
6280 | Realism is a theory, which explains the convergence of science and the success of language [Putnam] |
7045 | Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil] |
7065 | Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil] |
7020 | Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil] |
7007 | I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil] |
7015 | A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil] |
7042 | A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil] |
7023 | Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil] |
7025 | Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil] |
7034 | Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil] |
7039 | How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil] |
7009 | Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil] |
7041 | Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil] |
7032 | Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil] |
7008 | Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil] |
7018 | Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil] |
7019 | Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil] |
7046 | Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil] |
7047 | Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil] |
7048 | Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil] |
6284 | If a tautology is immune from revision, why would that make it true? [Putnam] |
7030 | Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil] |
7028 | If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil] |
7029 | Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil] |
7051 | Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil] |
7044 | Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil] |
7052 | Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil] |
7053 | Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil] |
6273 | Knowledge depends on believing others, which must be innate, as inferences are not strong enough [Putnam] |
6274 | Empathy may not give knowledge, but it can give plausibility or right opinion [Putnam] |
7066 | If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil] |
7021 | If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil] |
7026 | Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil] |
7060 | One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil] |
17084 | You can't decide which explanations are good if you don't attend to the interest-relative aspects [Putnam] |
3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
7010 | Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil] |
7054 | Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil] |
7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
7061 | Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil] |
7063 | Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil] |
7064 | Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil] |
7027 | Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil] |
7062 | Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil] |
7059 | The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil] |
7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
7043 | Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil] |
23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
7058 | Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil] |
7057 | Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil] |
6282 | Theory of meaning presupposes theory of understanding and reference [Putnam] |
7013 | The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil] |
6281 | Truth conditions can't explain understanding a sentence, because that in turn needs explanation [Putnam] |
6278 | We should reject the view that truth is prior to meaning [Putnam] |
6271 | How reference is specified is not what reference is [Putnam] |
6268 | The claim that scientific terms are incommensurable can be blocked if scientific terms are not descriptions [Putnam] |
7002 | If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil] |
6279 | A private language could work with reference and beliefs, and wouldn't need meaning [Putnam] |
6270 | The correct translation is the one that explains the speaker's behaviour [Putnam] |
6283 | Language maps the world in many ways (because it maps onto other languages in many ways) [Putnam] |
6275 | You can't say 'most speaker's beliefs are true'; in some areas this is not so, and you can't count beliefs [Putnam] |
22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
7016 | The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil] |
7036 | The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil] |