Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Classical Cosmology (frags)', 'In Defence of Pure Reason' and 'Representation and Reality'

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38 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy
Philosophy is a priori if it is anything [Bonjour]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
The job of the philosopher is to distinguish facts about the world from conventions [Putnam]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 3. Pure Reason
Perceiving necessary connections is the essence of reasoning [Bonjour]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
Coherence can't be validated by appeal to coherence [Bonjour]
3. Truth / F. Semantic Truth / 2. Semantic Truth
Semantic notions do not occur in Tarski's definitions, but assessing their correctness involves translation [Putnam]
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth
Asserting the truth of an indexical statement is not the same as uttering the statement [Putnam]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
Aristotle says an object (e.g. a lamp) has identity if its parts stay together when it is moved [Putnam]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
The concept of possibility is prior to that of necessity [Bonjour]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Moderate rationalists believe in fallible a priori justification [Bonjour]
Our rules of thought can only be judged by pure rational insight [Bonjour]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / d. Rational foundations
A priori justification requires understanding but no experience [Bonjour]
You can't explain away a priori justification as analyticity, and you can't totally give it up [Bonjour]
A priori justification can vary in degree [Bonjour]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique
The induction problem blocks any attempted proof of physical statements [Bonjour]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
Externalist theories of justification don't require believers to have reasons for their beliefs [Bonjour]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 10. Anti External Justification
Externalism means we have no reason to believe, which is strong scepticism [Bonjour]
14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction
Induction must go beyond the evidence, in order to explain why the evidence occurred [Bonjour]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 2. Machine Functionalism
Functionalism says robots and people are the same at one level of abstraction [Putnam]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
If concepts have external meaning, computational states won't explain psychology [Putnam]
Functionalism can't explain reference and truth, which are needed for logic [Putnam]
Is there just one computational state for each specific belief? [Putnam]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 3. Eliminativism
If we are going to eliminate folk psychology, we must also eliminate folk logic [Putnam]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Can we give a scientific, computational account of folk psychology? [Putnam]
18. Thought / C. Content / 1. Content
All thought represents either properties or indexicals [Bonjour]
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
Reference may be different while mental representation is the same [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 1. Meaning
Meaning and translation (which are needed to define truth) both presuppose the notion of reference [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
"Meaning is use" is not a definition of meaning [Putnam]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 7. Meaning Holism / b. Language holism
Holism seems to make fixed definition more or less impossible [Putnam]
Meaning holism tried to show that you can't get fixed meanings built out of observation terms [Putnam]
Understanding a sentence involves background knowledge and can't be done in isolation [Putnam]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / a. Direct reference
We should separate how the reference of 'gold' is fixed from its conceptual content [Putnam]
Like names, natural kind terms have their meaning fixed by extension and reference [Putnam]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / c. Social reference
Aristotle implies that we have the complete concepts of a language in our heads, but we don't [Putnam]
Reference (say to 'elms') is a social phenomenon which we can leave to experts [Putnam]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
Indeterminacy of translation is actually indeterminacy of meaning and belief [Bonjour]
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 5. Reference to Natural Kinds
"Water" is a natural kind term, but "H2O" is a description [Putnam]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 1. Cosmology
Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]