Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Rationality of Science', 'Truth and Probability' and 'Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology'

expand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


33 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
For science to be rational, we must explain scientific change rationally [Newton-Smith]
We do not wish merely to predict, we also want to explain [Newton-Smith]
The real problem of science is how to choose between possible explanations [Newton-Smith]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism
Critics attack positivist division between theory and observation [Newton-Smith]
Positivists hold that theoretical terms change, but observation terms don't [Newton-Smith]
3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
More truthful theories have greater predictive power [Newton-Smith]
Theories generate infinite truths and falsehoods, so they cannot be used to assess probability [Newton-Smith]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
Moral realism doesn't seem to entail the existence of any things [Cameron]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 3. Truthmaker Maximalism
Surely if some propositions are grounded in existence, they all are? [Cameron]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 4. Truthmaker Necessitarianism
Orthodox Truthmaker applies to all propositions, and necessitates their truth [Cameron]
God fixes all the truths of the world by fixing what exists [Cameron]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 5. What Makes Truths / a. What makes truths
What the proposition says may not be its truthmaker [Cameron]
Rather than what exists, some claim that the truthmakers are ways of existence, dispositions, modalities etc [Cameron]
Truthmaking doesn't require realism, because we can be anti-realist about truthmakers [Cameron]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 6. Making Negative Truths
Without truthmakers, negative truths must be ungrounded [Cameron]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 11. Truthmaking and Correspondence
I support the correspondence theory because I believe in truthmakers [Cameron]
Maybe truthmaking and correspondence stand together, and are interdefinable [Cameron]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
For realists it is analytic that truths are grounded in the world [Cameron]
Realism says a discourse is true or false, and some of it is true [Cameron]
Realism says truths rest on mind-independent reality; truthmaking theories are about which features [Cameron]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
'If' is the same as 'given that', so the degrees of belief should conform to probability theory [Ramsey, by Ramsey]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
De re necessity arises from the way the world is [Newton-Smith]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
We should reject distinct but indiscernible worlds [Cameron]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
We must assess the truth of beliefs in identifying them [Newton-Smith]
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
Defeat relativism by emphasising truth and reference, not meaning [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 1. Observation
A full understanding of 'yellow' involves some theory [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 5. Anomalies
All theories contain anomalies, and so are falsified! [Newton-Smith]
The anomaly of Uranus didn't destroy Newton's mechanics - it led to Neptune's discovery [Newton-Smith]
Anomalies are judged against rival theories, and support for the current theory [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Why should it matter whether or not a theory is scientific? [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 5. Commensurability
If theories are really incommensurable, we could believe them all [Newton-Smith]
14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem
Ramsey gave axioms for an uncertain agent to decide their preferences [Ramsey, by Davidson]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / c. Reasons as causes
Explaining an action is showing that it is rational [Newton-Smith]