51 ideas
6319 | Wise people choose inaction and silence [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6325 | One who knows does not speak; one who speaks does not know [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6321 | Vulgar people are alert; I alone am muddled [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
14025 | The weaker version of Truthmaker: 'truth supervenes on being' [Crisp,TM] |
14023 | The Truthmaker thesis spells trouble for presentists [Crisp,TM] |
14024 | Truthmaker has problems with generalisation, non-existence claims, and property instantiations [Crisp,TM] |
12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
14021 | Worm Perdurantism has a fusion of all the parts; Stage Perdurantism has one part at a time [Crisp,TM] |
17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
6328 | To know yet to think that one does not know is best [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6323 | Pursuit of learning increases activity; the Way decreases it [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
6331 | Truth is not beautiful; beautiful speech is not truthful [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
6330 | One with no use for life is wiser than one who values it [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6327 | Do good to him who has done you an injury [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
23402 | The highest virtue is achieved without effort [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6324 | To gain in goodness, treat as good those who are good, and those who are not [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6322 | There is no crime greater than having too many desires [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6320 | The best rulers are invisible, the next admired, the next feared, and the worst are exploited [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6329 | People are hard to govern because authorities love to do things [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
6326 | The better known the law, the more criminals there are [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
23401 | A military victory is not a thing of beauty [Laozi (Lao Tzu)] |
14020 | 'Eternalism' is the thesis that reality includes past, present and future entities [Crisp,TM] |
14026 | Presentists can talk of 'times', with no more commitment than modalists have to possible worlds [Crisp,TM] |
14022 | The only three theories are Presentism, Dynamic (A-series) Eternalism and Static (B-series) Eternalism [Crisp,TM] |