Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Five Milestones of Empiricism', 'Mental Files in Flux' and 'Thinking About Mechanisms'

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

26 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition
19048 Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine]
19047 Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic
22246 A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
16562 We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
19049 In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine]
19046 Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
16563 The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / h. Explanations by function
16555 Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
16528 Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16529 Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16530 A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16553 Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
16559 Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
16564 There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
16561 We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought
22247 Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati]
22248 How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files
22242 Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati]
22243 The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / b. Reference by description
22245 A linguistic expression refers to what its associated mental file refers to [Recanati]
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
22250 There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati]
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique
19050 Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine]
19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / a. Contextual meaning
22249 The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
16558 Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver]