18 ideas
| 13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
| 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] |
| 13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
| 8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
| 8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
| 8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
| 13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
| 13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
| 13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
| 13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
| 8206 | Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine] |
| 13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
| 13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
| 13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
| 14802 | Physical and psychical laws of mind are either independent, or derived in one or other direction [Peirce] |
| 14800 | The world is full of variety, but laws seem to produce uniformity [Peirce] |
| 14801 | Darwinian evolution is chance, with the destruction of bad results [Peirce] |