40 ideas
| 9307 | Modern Western culture suddenly appeared in Jena in the 1790s [Svendsen] |
| 9297 | You can't understand love in terms of 'if and only if...' [Svendsen] |
| 18890 | Putnam smuggles essentialism about liquids into his proof that water must be H2O [Salmon,N on Putnam] |
| 13047 | It is knowing 'why' that gives scientific understanding, not knowing 'that' [Salmon] |
| 13065 | Understanding is an extremely vague concept [Salmon] |
| 9308 | If subjective and objective begin to merge, then so do primary and secondary qualities [Svendsen] |
| 13054 | Correlations can provide predictions, but only causes can give explanations [Salmon] |
| 13067 | For the instrumentalists there are no scientific explanations [Salmon] |
| 13055 | Good induction needs 'total evidence' - the absence at the time of any undermining evidence [Salmon] |
| 13046 | Scientific explanation is not reducing the unfamiliar to the familiar [Salmon] |
| 13058 | Why-questions can seek evidence as well as explanation [Salmon] |
| 13064 | The three basic conceptions of scientific explanation are modal, epistemic, and ontic [Salmon] |
| 13050 | The 'inferential' conception is that all scientific explanations are arguments [Salmon] |
| 13059 | Ontic explanations can be facts, or reports of facts [Salmon] |
| 13049 | We must distinguish true laws because they (unlike accidental generalizations) explain things [Salmon] |
| 13051 | Deductive-nomological explanations will predict, and their predictions will explain [Salmon] |
| 13053 | A law is not enough for explanation - we need information about what makes a difference [Salmon] |
| 13061 | Flagpoles explain shadows, and not vice versa, because of temporal ordering [Salmon] |
| 13045 | Explanation at the quantum level will probably be by entirely new mechanisms [Salmon] |
| 13062 | Does an item have a function the first time it occurs? [Salmon] |
| 13063 | Explanations reveal the mechanisms which produce the facts [Salmon] |
| 13060 | Can events whose probabilities are low be explained? [Salmon] |
| 13056 | Statistical explanation needs relevance, not high probability [Salmon] |
| 13057 | Think of probabilities in terms of propensities rather than frequencies [Salmon] |
| 7705 | The Twin Earth theory suggests that intentionality is independent of qualia [Jacquette on Putnam] |
| 9309 | Emotions have intentional objects, while a mood is objectless [Svendsen] |
| 4099 | If Twins talking about 'water' and 'XYZ' have different thoughts but identical heads, then thoughts aren't in the head [Putnam, by Crane] |
| 12026 | We say ice and steam are different forms of water, but not that they are different forms of H2O [Forbes,G on Putnam] |
| 3208 | Does 'water' mean a particular substance that was 'dubbed'? [Putnam, by Rey] |
| 3893 | Often reference determines sense, and not (as Frege thought) vice versa [Putnam, by Scruton] |
| 9304 | Death appears to be more frightening the less one has lived [Svendsen] |
| 9298 | We can be unaware that we are bored [Svendsen] |
| 9301 | Boredom is so radical that suicide could not overcome it; only never having existed would do it [Svendsen] |
| 9302 | We are bored because everything comes to us fully encoded, and we want personal meaning [Svendsen] |
| 9310 | The profoundest boredom is boredom with boredom [Svendsen] |
| 9311 | We have achieved a sort of utopia, and it is boring, so that is the end of utopias [Svendsen] |
| 9303 | The concept of 'alienation' seems no longer applicable [Svendsen] |
| 11191 | The hidden structure of a natural kind determines membership in all possible worlds [Putnam] |
| 11192 | If causes are the essence of diseases, then disease is an example of a relational essence [Putnam, by Williams,NE] |
| 11190 | Archimedes meant by 'gold' the hidden structure or essence of the stuff [Putnam] |