23 ideas
13407 | All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau] |
9572 | Realists about sets say there exists a null set in the real world, with no members [Chihara] |
9550 | We only know relational facts about the empty set, but nothing intrinsic [Chihara] |
9562 | In simple type theory there is a hierarchy of null sets [Chihara] |
9573 | The null set is a structural position which has no other position in membership relation [Chihara] |
9551 | What is special about Bill Clinton's unit set, in comparison with all the others? [Chihara] |
9549 | The set theorist cannot tell us what 'membership' is [Chihara] |
9571 | ZFU refers to the physical world, when it talks of 'urelements' [Chihara] |
9563 | A pack of wolves doesn't cease when one member dies [Chihara] |
9561 | The mathematics of relations is entirely covered by ordered pairs [Chihara] |
9552 | Sentences are consistent if they can all be true; for Frege it is that no contradiction can be deduced [Chihara] |
9553 | Analytic geometry gave space a mathematical structure, which could then have axioms [Chihara] |
10192 | We can replace existence of sets with possibility of constructing token sentences [Chihara, by MacBride] |
13409 | Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau] |
9559 | If a successful theory confirms mathematics, presumably a failed theory disconfirms it? [Chihara] |
9566 | No scientific explanation would collapse if mathematical objects were shown not to exist [Chihara] |
13406 | A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau] |
13408 | Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau] |
9568 | I prefer the open sentences of a Constructibility Theory, to Platonist ideas of 'equivalence classes' [Chihara] |
13410 | Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau] |
9547 | Mathematical entities are causally inert, so the causal theory of reference won't work for them [Chihara] |
19216 | Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson] |
9574 | 'Gunk' is an individual possessing no parts that are atoms [Chihara] |