40 ideas
13939 | No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap] |
16252 | Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap] |
13342 | Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution [Tarski on Carnap] |
13251 | Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap] |
13936 | Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap] |
8748 | Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro] |
8960 | Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó] |
5311 | If observation goes up a level, we expect the laws of the lower level to remain in force [Wilson,EO] |
13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
13934 | To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap] |
13938 | A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap] |
5312 | A child first sees objects as distinct, and later as members of groups [Wilson,EO] |
13935 | We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap] |
14305 | In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap] |
19542 | It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
19543 | To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
5309 | Beliefs are really enabling mechanisms for survival [Wilson,EO] |
19541 | Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
19540 | Don't confuse justified belief with justified believers [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
19539 | If knowledge is unanalysable, that makes justification more important [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
18699 | Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory [Carnap, by Button] |
13940 | All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap] |
13048 | Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon] |
12131 | All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody] |
19538 | Entailment is modelled in formal semantics as set inclusion (where 'mammals' contains 'cats') [Dougherty/Rysiew] |
11968 | The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan] |
18285 | All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap] |
5310 | Philosophers study the consequences of ethics instead of its origins [Wilson,EO] |
22187 | Genetic behaviours that have enhanced human success include aggression, rape and xenophobia [Wilson,EO, by Okasha] |
5313 | The rules of human decision-making converge and overlap in a 'human nature' [Wilson,EO] |
5316 | We undermine altruism by rewarding it, but we reward it to encourage it [Wilson,EO] |
5318 | Pure hard-core altruism based on kin selection is the enemy of civilisation [Wilson,EO] |
5317 | The actor is most convincing who believes that his performance is real [Wilson,EO] |
20662 | The biology of societies: kin selection, parenting, mating; status, territory, contracts [Wilson,EO] |
5308 | The only human purpose is that created by our genetic history [Wilson,EO] |
5314 | Cultural evolution is Lamarckian and fast, biological evolution is Darwinian and slow [Wilson,EO] |
5315 | Over 99 percent of human evolution has been in the hunter-gatherer phase [Wilson,EO] |
5320 | It is estimated that mankind has produced 100,000 religions [Wilson,EO] |