Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On Multiplying Entities', 'On Simple Theories of a Complex World' and 'Logical Consequence'

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14 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine]
In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 1. Logical Consequence
Validity is explained as truth in all models, because that relies on the logical terms [McGee]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
Natural language includes connectives like 'because' which are not truth-functional [McGee]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 5. Second-Order Quantification
Second-order variables need to range over more than collections of first-order objects [McGee]
5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 1. Semantics of Logic
An ontologically secure semantics for predicate calculus relies on sets [McGee]
5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 3. Logical Truth
Logically valid sentences are analytic truths which are just true because of their logical words [McGee]
5. Theory of Logic / K. Features of Logics / 3. Soundness
Soundness theorems are uninformative, because they rely on soundness in their proofs [McGee]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 3. Axioms for Geometry
The culmination of Euclidean geometry was axioms that made all models isomorphic [McGee]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
It seems obvious to prefer the simpler of two theories, on grounds of beauty and convenience [Quine]
There are four suspicious reasons why we prefer simpler theories [Quine]
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
A maxim claims that if we are allowed to assert a sentence, that means it must be true [McGee]