45 ideas
23027 | Ideals and metaphysics are practical, not imaginative or speculative [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
3859 | We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith] |
3870 | The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith] |
3853 | For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith] |
3855 | Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith] |
3854 | Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith] |
3869 | More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith] |
3861 | Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith] |
9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
23030 | Truth is a relation to a whole of organised knowledge in the collection of rational minds [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
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] |
3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
23044 | All knowledge rests on a fundamental unity between the knower and what is known [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
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] |
23034 | The ultimate test for truth is the systematic interdependence in nature [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
3857 | Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith] |
3858 | A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith] |
3862 | All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith] |
3863 | The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith] |
3864 | Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith] |
3865 | Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith] |
3866 | If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith] |
9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
23032 | What is distinctive of human life is the desire for self-improvement [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23033 | Hedonism offers no satisfaction, because what we desire is self-betterment [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23045 | Politics is compromises, which seem supported by a social contract, but express the will of no one [Green,TH] |
23050 | The ideal is a society in which all citizens are ladies and gentlemen [Green,TH] |
23052 | Enfranchisement is an end in itself; it makes a person moral, and gives a basis for respect [Green,TH] |
9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
23036 | The good is identified by the capacities of its participants [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23039 | A true state is only unified and stabilised by acknowledging individuality [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23038 | People only develop their personality through co-operation with the social whole [Green,TH, by Muirhead] |
23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
23031 | God is the ideal end of the mature mind's final development [Green,TH] |
23041 | God is the realisation of the possibilities of each man's self [Green,TH] |