Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Classical Cosmology (frags)', 'Ontological Categories' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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27 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
17070 Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
17072 We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
13134 We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
13124 Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff]
13117 How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff]
13116 Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff]
13118 Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff]
13125 Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff]
13126 Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff]
13130 Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation
13131 The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
13123 All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
13115 Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff]
13119 Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff]
13135 A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
13129 Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
17073 I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
17077 The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
17078 Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
17061 Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
17074 Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
17076 Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
17071 An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
17062 If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
17075 Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
17063 Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology
5994 Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]