30 ideas
| 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] |
| 3993 | Arguments are nearly always open to challenge, but they help to explain a position rather than force people to believe [Lewis] |
| 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] |
| 3990 | The whole truth supervenes on the physical truth [Lewis] |
| 3991 | Where pixels make up a picture, supervenience is reduction [Lewis] |
| 3867 | De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith] |
| 3872 | We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith] |
| 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] |
| 3995 | A mind is an organ of representation [Lewis] |
| 3994 | Human pain might be one thing; Martian pain might be something else [Lewis] |
| 3989 | I am a reductionist about mind because I am an a priori reductionist about everything [Lewis] |
| 3992 | Folk psychology makes good predictions, by associating mental states with causal roles [Lewis] |
| 3996 | Folk psychology doesn't say that there is a language of thought [Lewis] |
| 3998 | If you don't share an external world with a brain-in-a-vat, then externalism says you don't share any beliefs [Lewis] |
| 3997 | Nothing shows that all content is 'wide', or that wide content has logical priority [Lewis] |
| 3999 | A spontaneous duplicate of you would have your brain states but no experience, so externalism would deny him any beliefs [Lewis] |
| 4000 | Wide content derives from narrow content and relationships with external things [Lewis] |
| 3871 | Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith] |
| 651 | Eurytus showed that numbers underlie things by making pictures of creatures out of pebbles [Eurytus, by Aristotle] |