51 ideas
4697 | There has been a distinct 'Social Turn' in recent philosophy, like the earlier 'Linguistic Turn' [O'Grady] |
4731 | Good reasoning will avoid contradiction, enhance coherence, not ignore evidence, and maximise evidence [O'Grady] |
4735 | Just as maps must simplify their subject matter, so thought has to be reductionist about reality [O'Grady] |
4701 | To say a relative truth is inexpressible in other frameworks is 'weak', while saying it is false is 'strong' [O'Grady] |
4703 | The epistemic theory of truth presents it as 'that which is licensed by our best theory of reality' [O'Grady] |
10653 | Maybe set theory need not be well-founded [Varzi] |
10648 | Mereology need not be nominalist, though it is often taken to be so [Varzi] |
10655 | Are there mereological atoms, and are all objects made of them? [Varzi] |
10659 | There is something of which everything is part, but no null-thing which is part of everything [Varzi] |
4705 | Logical relativism appears if we allow more than one legitimate logical system [O'Grady] |
4700 | A third value for truth might be "indeterminate", or a point on a scale between 'true' and 'false' [O'Grady] |
4704 | Wittgenstein reduced Russell's five primitive logical symbols to a mere one [O'Grady] |
4711 | Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties [O'Grady] |
4698 | What counts as a fact partly depends on the availability of human concepts to describe them [O'Grady] |
8780 | Attributes are functions, not objects; this distinguishes 'square of 2' from 'double of 2' [Geach] |
4715 | We may say that objects have intrinsic identity conditions, but still allow multiple accounts of them [O'Grady] |
10661 | 'Composition is identity' says multitudes are the reality, loosely composing single things [Varzi] |
10654 | The parthood relation will help to define at least seven basic predicates [Varzi] |
10651 | If 'part' is reflexive, then identity is a limit case of parthood [Varzi] |
10649 | 'Part' stands for a reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive relation [Varzi] |
10647 | Parts may or may not be attached, demarcated, arbitrary, material, extended, spatial or temporal [Varzi] |
10658 | Sameness of parts won't guarantee identity if their arrangement matters [Varzi] |
11910 | Being 'the same' is meaningless, unless we specify 'the same X' [Geach] |
4719 | Maybe developments in logic and geometry have shown that the a priori may be relative [O'Grady] |
10652 | Conceivability may indicate possibility, but literary fantasy does not [Varzi] |
4720 | Sense-data are only safe from scepticism if they are primitive and unconceptualised [O'Grady] |
4722 | Modern epistemology centres on debates about foundations, and about external justification [O'Grady] |
4724 | Internalists say the reasons for belief must be available to the subject, and externalists deny this [O'Grady] |
4723 | Coherence involves support from explanation and evidence, and also probability and confirmation [O'Grady] |
4709 | Ontological relativists are anti-realists, who deny that our theories carve nature at the joints [O'Grady] |
4725 | Contextualism says that knowledge is relative to its context; 'empty' depends on your interests [O'Grady] |
4732 | One may understand a realm of ideas, but be unable to judge their rationality or truth [O'Grady] |
8775 | A big flea is a small animal, so 'big' and 'small' cannot be acquired by abstraction [Geach] |
8776 | We cannot learn relations by abstraction, because their converse must be learned too [Geach] |
2567 | You can't define real mental states in terms of behaviour that never happens [Geach] |
2568 | Beliefs aren't tied to particular behaviours [Geach] |
8781 | The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them [Geach] |
8769 | If someone has aphasia but can still play chess, they clearly have concepts [Geach] |
8770 | 'Abstractionism' is acquiring a concept by picking out one experience amongst a group [Geach] |
8771 | 'Or' and 'not' are not to be found in the sensible world, or even in the world of inner experience [Geach] |
8772 | We can't acquire number-concepts by extracting the number from the things being counted [Geach] |
8773 | Abstractionists can't explain counting, because it must precede experience of objects [Geach] |
8774 | The numbers don't exist in nature, so they cannot have been abstracted from there into our languages [Geach] |
8778 | Blind people can use colour words like 'red' perfectly intelligently [Geach] |
8777 | If 'black' and 'cat' can be used in the absence of such objects, how can such usage be abstracted? [Geach] |
8779 | We can form two different abstract concepts that apply to a single unified experience [Geach] |
4710 | Verificationism was attacked by the deniers of the analytic-synthetic distinction, needed for 'facts' [O'Grady] |
4717 | If we abandon the analytic-synthetic distinction, scepticism about meaning may be inevitable [O'Grady] |
4706 | Early Quine says all beliefs could be otherwise, but later he said we would assume mistranslation [O'Grady] |
4734 | Cryptographers can recognise that something is a language, without translating it [O'Grady] |
4727 | The chief problem for fideists is other fideists who hold contrary ideas [O'Grady] |