Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On Multiplying Entities', 'Shame and Necessity' and 'On Human Nature'

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26 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
8208 In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine]
8207 The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
8205 Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
5311 If observation goes up a level, we expect the laws of the lower level to remain in force [Wilson,EO]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 5. Universals as Concepts
5312 A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
8206 Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / a. Beliefs
5309 Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will
2176 There is only a problem of free will if you think the notion of 'voluntary' can be metaphysically deepened [Williams,B]
2181 It is an absurd Kantian idea that at the limit rationality and freedom coincide [Williams,B]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
4317 We judge weakness of will by an assessment after the event is concluded [Williams,B, by Cottingham]
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 4. Responsibility for Actions
2174 Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
5310 Philosophers study the consequences of ethics instead of its origins [Wilson,EO]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
2178 In bad actions, guilt points towards victims, and shame to the agent [Williams,B]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
5313 The rules of human decision-making converge and overlap in a 'human nature' [Wilson,EO]
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / f. Altruism
5316 We undermine altruism by rewarding it, but we reward it to encourage it [Wilson,EO]
5318 Pure hard-core altruism based on kin selection is the enemy of civilisation [Wilson,EO]
23. Ethics / B. Contract Ethics / 1. Contractarianism
5317 The actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real [Wilson,EO]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / a. Nature of virtue
2169 Greek moral progress came when 'virtue' was freed from social status [Williams,B]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 2. Duty
2172 The modern idea of duty is unknown in archaic Greece [Williams,B]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty
2179 If the moral self is seen as characterless, then other people have a very limited role in our moral lives [Williams,B]
2180 If reason cannot lead people to good, we must hope they have an internal voice [Williams,B]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 2. Natural Purpose / c. Purpose denied
5308 The only human purpose is that created by our genetic history [Wilson,EO]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5314 Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO]
5315 Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
5320 It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO]
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
2175 There is a problem of evil only if you expect the world to be good [Williams,B]