50 ideas
24032 | Clever scholars can obscure things which are obvious even to peasants [Descartes] |
16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
24033 | Most scholastic disputes concern words, where agreeing on meanings would settle them [Descartes] |
24024 | The secret of the method is to recognise which thing in a series is the simplest [Descartes] |
24018 | One truth leads us to another [Descartes] |
16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
11211 | If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt] |
16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
11212 | The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt] |
11210 | Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt] |
16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
24035 | Unity is something shared by many things, so in that respect they are equals [Descartes] |
24036 | I can only see the proportion of two to three if there is a common measure - their unity [Descartes] |
16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
24029 | Among the simples are the graspable negations, such as rest and instants [Descartes] |
16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
24030 | 3+4=7 is necessary because we cannot conceive of seven without including three and four [Descartes] |
16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
24019 | If we accept mere probabilities as true we undermine our existing knowledge [Descartes] |
24020 | We all see intuitively that we exist, where intuition is attentive, clear and distinct rational understanding [Descartes] |
24031 | When Socrates doubts, he know he doubts, and that truth is possible [Descartes] |
24025 | Clear and distinct truths must be known all at once (unlike deductions) [Descartes] |
24022 | Our souls possess divine seeds of knowledge, which can bear spontaneous fruit [Descartes] |
24034 | If someone had only seen the basic colours, they could deduce the others from resemblance [Descartes] |
24021 | The method starts with clear intuitions, followed by a process of deduction [Descartes] |
24027 | Nerves and movement originate in the brain, where imagination moves them [Descartes] |
24026 | Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes] |
24028 | The force by which we know things is spiritual, and quite distinct from the body [Descartes] |
16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
11214 | We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt] |
24023 | All the sciences searching for order and measure are related to mathematics [Descartes] |