41 ideas
9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
18986 | Truth is just a name for verification-processes [James] |
18983 | In many cases there is no obvious way in which ideas can agree with their object [James] |
9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
18972 | Ideas are true in so far as they co-ordinate our experiences [James] |
18973 | New opinions count as 'true' if they are assimilated to an individual's current beliefs [James] |
18984 | True ideas are those we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify (and false otherwise) [James] |
9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
18987 | A 'thing' is simply carved out of reality for human purposes [James] |
18981 | 'Substance' is just a word for groupings and structures in experience [James] |
9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
9598 | Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson] |
16536 | Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson] |
9596 | We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson] |
18974 | Truth is a species of good, being whatever proves itself good in the way of belief [James] |
9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
18989 | Pragmatism accepts any hypothesis which has useful consequences [James] |
9592 | Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson] |
20181 | When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson] |
18971 | Theories are practical tools for progress, not answers to enigmas [James] |
18982 | Pragmatism says all theories are instrumental - that is, mental modes of adaptation to reality [James] |
18985 | True thoughts are just valuable instruments of action [James] |
18975 | We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences [James] |
9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
7590 | Consequentialism emphasises value rather than obligation in morality [Scruton] |
7589 | Altruism is either emotional (where your interests are mine) or moral (where they are reasons for me) [Scruton] |
7595 | The idea of a right seems fairly basic; justice may be the disposition to accord rights to people [Scruton] |
9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
7588 | Allegiance is fundamental to the conservative view of society [Scruton] |
7594 | Democrats are committed to a belief and to its opposite, if the majority prefer the latter [Scruton] |
7593 | Liberals focus on universal human freedom, natural rights, and tolerance [Scruton, by PG] |
7592 | For positivists law is a matter of form, for naturalists it is a matter of content [Scruton] |
7587 | The issue of abortion seems insoluble, because there is nothing with which to compare it [Scruton] |
18980 | If there is a 'greatest knower', it doesn't follow that they know absolutely everything [James] |
18978 | It is hard to grasp a cosmic mind which produces such a mixture of goods and evils [James] |
18991 | If the God hypothesis works well, then it is true [James] |
18977 | The wonderful design of a woodpecker looks diabolical to its victims [James] |
18979 | Things with parts always have some structure, so they always appear to be designed [James] |
18976 | Private experience is the main evidence for God [James] |
18990 | Nirvana means safety from sense experience, and hindus and buddhists are just afraid of life [James] |