Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Essays on Intellectual Powers: Conception', 'Experimental Researches in Electricity' and 'The Moral Problem'

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25 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
23728 Analysis aims to express the full set of platitudes surrounding a given concept [Smith,M]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 1. Definitions
23744 Defining a set of things by paradigms doesn't pin them down enough [Smith,M]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
23647 Objects have an essential constitution, producing its qualities, which we are too ignorant to define [Reid]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible
11958 Impossibilites are easily conceived in mathematics and geometry [Reid, by Molnar]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / a. Rationality
23743 Capturing all the common sense facts about rationality is almost impossible [Smith,M]
19. Language / B. Reference / 1. Reference theories
23646 Reference is by name, or a term-plus-circumstance, or ostensively, or by description [Reid]
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / c. Social reference
23645 A word's meaning is the thing conceived, as fixed by linguistic experts [Reid]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 1. Acting on Desires
23724 A pure desire could be criticised if it were based on a false belief [Smith,M]
23736 A person can have a desire without feeling it [Smith,M]
23723 In the Humean account, desires are not true/false, or subject to any rational criticism [Smith,M]
23735 Subjects may be fallible about the desires which explain their actions [Smith,M]
23738 Humeans (unlike their opponents) say that desires and judgements can separate [Smith,M]
23742 If first- and second-order desires conflict, harmony does not require the second-order to win [Smith,M]
23746 Objective reasons to act might be the systematic desires of a fully rational person [Smith,M]
23739 Goals need desires, and so only desires can motivate us [Smith,M]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason
23733 Motivating reasons are psychological, while normative reasons are external [Smith,M]
23740 Humeans take maximising desire satisfaction as the normative reasons for actions [Smith,M]
23745 We cannot expect even fully rational people to converge on having the same desires for action [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / h. Against ethics
23731 'Externalists' say moral judgements are not reasons, and maybe not even motives [Smith,M]
23732 A person could make a moral judgement without being in any way motivated by it [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
23729 Moral internalism says a judgement of rightness is thereby motivating [Smith,M]
23730 'Rationalism' says the rightness of an action is a reason to perform it [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
23727 Expressivists count attitudes as 'moral' if they concern features of things, rather than their mere existence [Smith,M]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / a. Nature of value
23741 Is valuing something a matter of believing or a matter of desiring? [Smith,M]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields
15314 Faraday's single field of variable forces introduces a criterion of Unity into what is ultimate [Faraday, by Harré/Madden]