Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Philosophy of Philosophy', 'Abstract of 'The Fourfold Root'' and 'Explanation in Mathematics'

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20 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
'There is nothing without a reason why it should be rather than not be' (a generalisation of 'Why?') [Schopenhauer]
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality
There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities
Essences are no use in mathematics, if all mathematical truths are necessary [Mancosu]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
All necessity arises from causation, which is conditioned; there is no absolute or unconditioned necessity [Schopenhauer]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson]
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson]
We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
All understanding is an immediate apprehension of the causal relation [Schopenhauer]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson]
When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson]
16. Persons / C. Self-Awareness / 2. Knowing the Self
What we know in ourselves is not a knower but a will [Schopenhauer]
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 3. Reference of 'I'
The knot of the world is the use of 'I' to refer to both willing and knowing [Schopenhauer]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use
You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson]
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 5. Culture
If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / b. Relative time
Time may be defined as the possibility of mutually exclusive conditions of the same thing [Schopenhauer]