Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P, Bas C. van Fraassen and Simon Blackburn

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27 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Philosophy is a value- and attitude-driven enterprise [Fraassen]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics
Is it likely that a successful, coherent, explanatory ontological hypothesis is true? [Fraassen]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis
Analytic philosophy has an exceptional arsenal of critical tools [Fraassen]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
We may end up with a huge theory of carefully constructed falsehoods [Fraassen]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
Empiricists deny what is unobservable, and reject objective modality [Fraassen]
Asserting a necessity just expresses our inability to imagine it is false [Blackburn]
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn]
If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew]
To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
To 'accept' a theory is not to believe it, but to believe it empirically adequate [Fraassen, by Bird]
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First
Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / a. Sense-data theory
Visual sense data are an inner picture show which represents the world [Blackburn]
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues
Don't confuse justified belief with justified believers [Dougherty/Rysiew]
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / b. Need for justification
If knowledge is unanalysable, that makes justification more important [Dougherty/Rysiew]
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 3. Reliabilism / b. Anti-reliabilism
A true belief might be based on a generally reliable process that failed on this occasion [Blackburn]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science
To accept a scientific theory, we only need to believe that it is empirically adequate [Fraassen]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
Why should the true explanation be one of the few we have actually thought of? [Fraassen, by Bird]
Inference to best explanation contains all sorts of hidden values [Fraassen]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 4. Explanation Doubts / a. Explanation as pragmatic
An explanation is just descriptive information answering a particular question [Fraassen, by Salmon]
We accept many scientific theories without endorsing them as true [Fraassen]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 2. Semantics
Entailment is modelled in formal semantics as set inclusion (where 'mammals' contains 'cats') [Dougherty/Rysiew]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / d. Weakness of will
Akrasia is intelligible in hindsight, when we revisit our previous emotions [Blackburn]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / d. Ethical theory
Some philosophers always want more from morality; for others, nature is enough [Blackburn]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / c. Ethical intuitionism
The main objection to intuitionism in ethics is that intuition is a disguise for prejudice or emotion [Blackburn]
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
Critics of prescriptivism observe that it is consistent to accept an ethical verdict but refuse to be bound by it [Blackburn]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / h. Respect
The word 'respect' ranges from mere non-interference to the highest levels of reverence [Blackburn]