Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Causal Explanation', 'Letters to Foucher' and 'Troubles with Functionalism'

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


27 ideas

3. Truth / A. Truth Problems / 6. Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
Essence is primitive force, or a law of change [Leibniz]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 7. Chance
We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / f. Necessity in explanations
A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos]
To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block]
Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block]
You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
Could a creature without a brain be in the right functional state for pain? [Block]
Not just any old functional network will have mental states [Block]
In functionalism, what are the special inputs and outputs of conscious creatures? [Block]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / b. Turing Machines
Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine [Block]
A Turing machine, given a state and input, specifies an output and the next state [Block]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax
Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis]
Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
The connection in events enables us to successfully predict the future, so there must be a constant cause [Leibniz]