33 ideas
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| 6479 | Noninterference requires justification as much as interference does [Nagel] |
| 6450 | Morality must be motivating, and not because of pre-moral motives [Nagel] |
| 6447 | Game theory misses out the motivation arising from the impersonal standpoint [Nagel] |
| 6446 | In ethics we abstract from our identity, but not from our humanity [Nagel] |
| 6477 | I can only universalise a maxim if everyone else could also universalise it [Nagel] |
| 6448 | A legitimate system is one accepted as both impartial and reasonably partial [Nagel] |
| 6478 | Democracy is opposed to equality, if the poor are not a majority [Nagel] |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
| 21202 | The strong force has a considerably greater range than the weak force [Martin,BR] |
| 21211 | If an expected reaction does not occur, that implies a conservation law [Martin,BR] |
| 21209 | Electron emit and reabsorb photons, which create and reabsorb virtual electrons and positrons [Martin,BR] |
| 21212 | The Higgs field, unlike others, has a nozero value in a state without particles [Martin,BR] |
| 21201 | A 'field' is just a region to which points can be assigned in space and time [Martin,BR] |
| 21205 | Many physicists believe particles have further structure, if only we could see it [Martin,BR] |
| 21203 | Uncertainty allows very brief violations of energy conservation - even shorter with higher energies [Martin,BR] |
| 21207 | The Exclusion Principle says no two fermions occupy the same state, with the same numbers [Martin,BR] |
| 21204 | The standard model combines theories of strong interaction, and electromagnetic and weak interaction [Martin,BR] |
| 21208 | Eletrons don't literally 'spin', because they are point-like [Martin,BR] |
| 21206 | The properties of a particle are determined by its quantum numbers and its mass [Martin,BR] |
| 21210 | Virtual particles surround any charged particle [Martin,BR] |
| 21213 | String theory only has one free parameter (tension) - unlike the standard model with 19 [Martin,BR] |
| 21200 | An 'element' is what cannot be decomposed by chemistry [Martin,BR] |