30 ideas
14611 | Metaphysics should avoid talk of past, present or future [Smart] |
17070 | Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart] |
17072 | We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart] |
22180 | Multiple realisability is said to make reduction impossible [Okasha] |
17073 | I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart] |
22177 | Randomised Control Trials have a treatment and a control group, chosen at random [Okasha] |
22172 | Not all sciences are experimental; astronomy relies on careful observation [Okasha] |
22174 | The discoverers of Neptune didn't change their theory because of an anomaly [Okasha] |
22175 | Science mostly aims at confirming theories, rather than falsifying them [Okasha] |
22182 | Theories with unobservables are underdetermined by the evidence [Okasha] |
22185 | Two things can't be incompatible if they are incommensurable [Okasha] |
22176 | Induction is inferences from examined to unexamined instances of a given kind [Okasha] |
22178 | If the rules only concern changes of belief, and not the starting point, absurd views can look ratiional [Okasha] |
17077 | The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart] |
17078 | Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart] |
17061 | Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart] |
17074 | Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart] |
17076 | Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart] |
17071 | An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart] |
17062 | If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart] |
17075 | Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart] |
468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
22405 | Negative utilitarianism implies that the world should be destroyed, to avoid future misery [Smart] |
22404 | Any group interested in ethics must surely have a sentiment of generalised benevolence [Smart] |
22173 | Galileo refuted the Aristotelian theory that heavier objects fall faster [Okasha] |
14613 | Special relativity won't determine a preferred frame, but we can pick one externally [Smart] |
17063 | Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart] |
14615 | If time flows, then 'how fast does it flow?' is a tricky question [Smart] |
14614 | The past, present, future and tenses of A-theory are too weird, and should be analysed indexically [Smart] |
17366 | Virtually all modern views of speciation rest on relational rather than intrinsic features [Okasha] |