74 ideas
326 | For relaxation one can consider the world of change, instead of eternal things [Plato] |
315 | Philosophy is the supreme gift of the gods to mortals [Plato] |
6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
306 | Nothing can come to be without a cause [Plato] |
12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
321 | For knowledge and true opinion to be different there must be Forms; otherwise we are just stuck with sensations [Plato] |
12042 | Plato's Forms were seen as part of physics, rather than of metaphysics [Plato, by Annas] |
307 | Something will always be well-made if the maker keeps in mind the eternal underlying pattern [Plato] |
318 | In addition to the underlying unchanging model and a changing copy of it, there must also be a foundation of all change [Plato] |
317 | The universe is basically an intelligible and unchanging model, and a visible and changing copy of it [Plato] |
8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
334 | Only bird-brained people think astronomy is entirely a matter of evidence [Plato] |
16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
5962 | Plato says the soul is ordered by number [Plato, by Plutarch] |
16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
330 | No one wants to be bad, but bad men result from physical and educational failures, which they do not want or choose [Plato] |
3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
316 | Music has harmony like the soul, and serves to reorder disharmony within us [Plato] |
332 | One should exercise both the mind and the body, to avoid imbalance [Plato] |
328 | Everything that takes place naturally is pleasant [Plato] |
322 | Intelligence is the result of rational teaching; true opinion can result from irrational persuasion [Plato] |
331 | Bad governments prevent discussion, and discourage the study of virtue [Plato] |
310 | The creator of the cosmos had no envy, and so wanted things to be as like himself as possible [Plato] |
311 | The cosmos must be unique, because it resembles the creator, who is unique [Plato] |
325 | We must consider the four basic shapes as too small to see, only becoming visible in large numbers [Plato] |
7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
327 | There are two types of cause, the necessary and the divine [Plato] |
16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
314 | Heavenly movements gave us the idea of time, and caused us to inquire about the heavens [Plato] |
312 | Time came into existence with the heavens, so that there will be a time when they can be dissolved [Plato] |
309 | Clearly the world is good, so its maker must have been concerned with the eternal, not with change [Plato] |
308 | If the cosmos is an object of perception then it must be continually changing [Plato] |