60 ideas
| 9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
| 6420 | Only by analysing is progress possible in philosophy [Russell] |
| 6432 | Analysis gives new knowledge, without destroying what we already have [Russell] |
| 20388 | 'Necessary' conditions are requirements, and 'sufficient' conditions are guarantees [Davies,S] |
| 20389 | A definition of a thing gives all the requirements which add up to a guarantee of it [Davies,S] |
| 20391 | Feminists warn that ideologies use timeless objective definitions as a tool of repression [Davies,S] |
| 6437 | The theory of types makes 'Socrates and killing are two' illegitimate [Russell] |
| 6442 | Truth belongs to beliefs, not to propositions and sentences [Russell] |
| 9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
| 6436 | I gradually replaced classes with properties, and they ended as a symbolic convenience [Russell] |
| 7528 | Leibniz bases everything on subject/predicate and substance/property propositions [Russell] |
| 6439 | Names are meaningless unless there is an object which they designate [Russell] |
| 6423 | We tried to define all of pure maths using logical premisses and concepts [Russell] |
| 6424 | Formalists say maths is merely conventional marks on paper, like the arbitrary rules of chess [Russell] |
| 6425 | Formalism can't apply numbers to reality, so it is an evasion [Russell] |
| 6426 | Intuitionism says propositions are only true or false if there is a method of showing it [Russell] |
| 6419 | In 1899-1900 I adopted the philosophy of logical atomism [Russell] |
| 6438 | Complex things can be known, but not simple things [Russell] |
| 9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
| 6434 | Facts are everything, except simples; they are either relations or qualities [Russell] |
| 9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
| 6440 | Universals can't just be words, because words themselves are universals [Russell] |
| 9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
| 9598 | Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson] |
| 16536 | Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson] |
| 9596 | We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson] |
| 6430 | In epistemology we should emphasis the continuity between animal and human minds [Russell] |
| 9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
| 6441 | Pragmatism judges by effects, but I judge truth by causes [Russell] |
| 6431 | Empiricists seem unclear what they mean by 'experience' [Russell] |
| 9592 | Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson] |
| 20181 | When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson] |
| 6444 | True belief about the time is not knowledge if I luckily observe a stopped clock at the right moment [Russell] |
| 6433 | Behaviourists struggle to explain memory and imagination, because they won't admit images [Russell] |
| 6443 | Surprise is a criterion of error [Russell] |
| 6427 | Unverifiable propositions about the remote past are still either true or false [Russell] |
| 9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
| 6435 | You can believe the meaning of a sentence without thinking of the words [Russell] |
| 20387 | Aesthetic experience involves perception, but also imagination and understanding [Davies,S] |
| 20385 | The faculty of 'taste' was posited to explain why only some people had aesthetic appreciation [Davies,S] |
| 20386 | The sublime is negative in awareness of insignificance, and positive in showing understanding [Davies,S] |
| 20384 | The idea that art forms are linked into a single concept began in the 1740s [Davies,S] |
| 20390 | Defining art as representation or expression or form were all undermined by the avant-garde [Davies,S] |
| 20392 | 'Aesthetic functionalism' says art is what is intended to create aesthetic experiences [Davies,S] |
| 20405 | Music may be expressive by being 'associated' with other emotional words or events [Davies,S] |
| 20403 | It seems unlikely that sad music expresses a composer's sadness; it takes ages to write [Davies,S] |
| 20393 | The 'institutional' theory says art is just something appropriately placed in the 'artworld' [Davies,S] |
| 20402 | Music is too definite to be put into words (not too indefinite!) [Davies,S] |
| 20395 | The title of a painting can be vital, and the artist decrees who the portrait represents [Davies,S] |
| 20396 | We must know what the work is meant to be, to evaluate the artist's achievement [Davies,S] |
| 20399 | Intentionalism says either meaning just is intention, or ('moderate') meaning is successful intention [Davies,S] |
| 20401 | The meaning is given by the audience's best guess at the author's intentions [Davies,S] |
| 20397 | If we could perfectly clone the Mona Lisa, the original would still be special [Davies,S] |
| 20398 | Art that is multiply instanced may require at least one instance [Davies,S] |
| 20404 | Music isn't just sad because it makes the listener feel sad [Davies,S] |
| 22704 | Immorality may or may not be an artistic defect [Davies,S] |
| 22705 | If the depiction of evil is glorified, that is an artistic flaw [Davies,S] |
| 22707 | It is an artistic defect if excessive moral outrage distorts the story, and narrows our sympathies [Davies,S] |
| 22706 | A work which seeks approval for immorality, but alienates the audience, is a failure [Davies,S] |
| 9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |