66 ideas
| 5278 | Philosophy is no more than abstractions concerning observations of human historical development [Marx/Engels] |
| 9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
| 9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
| 1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
| 8455 | Canonical notation needs quantification, variables and predicates, but not names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8456 | Quine extended Russell's defining away of definite descriptions, to also define away names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
| 1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [Quine] |
| 1616 | Formalism says maths is built of meaningless notations; these build into rules which have meaning [Quine] |
| 1615 | Intuitionism says classes are invented, and abstract entities are constructed from specified ingredients [Quine] |
| 1614 | Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made [Quine] |
| 10241 | For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro] |
| 4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
| 19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
| 12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
| 9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
| 5287 | Philosophical problems are resolved into empirical facts [Marx/Engels] |
| 9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
| 8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
| 1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
| 8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
| 8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
| 16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
| 7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
| 1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
| 15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
| 4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
| 8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
| 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] |
| 8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
| 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] |
| 12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
| 18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
| 9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
| 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] |
| 23872 | 'Society determines consciousness' is contradictory; society only exists in minds [Weil on Marx/Engels] |
| 5277 | Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life [Marx/Engels] |
| 5280 | Language co-exists with consciousness, and makes it social [Marx/Engels] |
| 9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
| 1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
| 1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
| 1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
| 19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
| 5276 | The nature of an individual coincides with what they produce and how they produce it [Marx/Engels] |
| 5281 | Consciousness is a social product [Marx/Engels] |
| 5289 | When aristocracy or the bourgeoisie dominate, certain values dominate with them [Marx/Engels] |
| 5274 | Young Hegelians proposed changing our present consciousness for liberating critical consciousness [Marx/Engels] |
| 21992 | Producing their own subsistence distinguishes men from animals [Marx/Engels] |
| 5275 | Men distinguish themselves from animals when they begin to produce their means of subsistence [Marx/Engels] |
| 5292 | Individuals are mutually hostile unless they group together in competition with other groups [Marx/Engels] |
| 9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
| 5293 | Only in community are people able to cultivate their gifts, and therefore be free [Marx/Engels] |
| 5273 | Young Hegelians think consciousness is chains for men, where old Hegelians think it the bond of society [Marx/Engels] |
| 5283 | In communist society we are not trapped in one activity, but can act freely [Marx/Engels] |
| 5282 | If the common interest imposes on the individual, his actions become alienated and enslaving [Marx/Engels] |
| 5288 | The class controlling material production also controls mental production [Marx/Engels] |
| 5290 | The revolutionary class is opposed to 'class', and represents all of society [Marx/Engels] |
| 5294 | To assert themselves as individuals, the proletarians must overthrow the State [Marx/Engels] |
| 5285 | Slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine [Marx/Engels] |
| 5284 | Communism abolishes private property and dissolves the powerful world market [Marx/Engels] |
| 5291 | The law says private property is the result of the general will [Marx/Engels] |
| 5279 | Human history must always be studied in relation to industry and exchange [Marx/Engels] |
| 5286 | Most historians are trapped in the illusions of their own epoch [Marx/Engels] |