53 ideas
| 2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
| 13736 | Quinean metaphysics just lists the beings, which is a domain with no internal structure [Schaffer,J on Quine] |
| 2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
| 2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
| 2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
| 3302 | Set theory is full of Platonist metaphysics, so Quine aimed to keep it separate from logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 10211 | Quine wants V = L for a cleaner theory, despite the scepticism of most theorists [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 3336 | Two things can never entail three things [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 8453 | If we had to name objects to make existence claims, we couldn't discuss all the real numbers [Quine] |
| 10311 | No sense can be made of quantification into opaque contexts [Quine, by Hale] |
| 10538 | Finite quantification can be eliminated in favour of disjunction and conjunction [Quine, by Dummett] |
| 10793 | Quine thought substitutional quantification confused use and mention, but then saw its nominalist appeal [Quine, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
| 8466 | For Quine, intuitionist ontology is inadequate for classical mathematics [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8467 | Intuitionists only admit numbers properly constructed, but classical maths covers all reals in a 'limit' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
| 10667 | A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack] |
| 16021 | Quine says we can expand predicates easily (ideology), but not names (ontology) [Quine, by Noonan] |
| 3325 | For Quine everything exists theoretically, as reference, predication and quantification [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 8534 | Quine says the predicate of a true statement has no ontological implications [Quine, by Armstrong] |
| 10295 | Quine suggests that properties can be replaced with extensional entities like sets [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 3322 | Quine says that if second-order logic is to quantify over properties, that can be done in first-order predicate logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
| 6078 | Quine brought classes into semantics to get rid of properties [Quine, by McGinn] |
| 8479 | Don't analyse 'red is a colour' as involving properties. Say 'all red things are coloured things' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 3751 | Universals are acceptable if they are needed to make an accepted theory true [Quine, by Jacquette] |
| 7970 | Quine is committed to sets, but is more a Class Nominalist than a Platonist [Quine, by Macdonald,C] |
| 15783 | Definite descriptions can't unambiguously pick out an object which doesn't exist [Lycan on Quine] |
| 15782 | Quine wants identity and individuation-conditions for possibilia [Quine, by Lycan] |
| 2796 | For Quine the only way to know a necessity is empirically [Quine, by Dancy,J] |
| 2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
| 2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
| 8450 | Quine's empiricism is based on whole theoretical systems, not on single mental events [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
| 3868 | To proclaim cultural relativism is to thereby rise above it [Quine, by Newton-Smith] |
| 4713 | For Quine, theories are instruments used to make predictions about observations [Quine, by O'Grady] |
| 2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
| 3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
| 2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
| 2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
| 2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
| 2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
| 5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| 2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
| 2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
| 2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
| 23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
| 2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
| 4712 | Quine says there is no matter of fact about reference - it is 'inscrutable' [Quine, by O'Grady] |
| 7330 | The principle of charity only applies to the logical constants [Quine, by Miller,A] |
| 22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
| 2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
| 17862 | Essence gives an illusion of understanding [Quine, by Almog] |
| 2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |