39 ideas
| 7454 | Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher [Hacking] |
| 13838 | A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics [Hacking] |
| 13833 | 'Thinning' ('dilution') is the key difference between deduction (which allows it) and induction [Hacking] |
| 13834 | Gentzen's Cut Rule (or transitivity of deduction) is 'If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C' [Hacking] |
| 13835 | Only Cut reduces complexity, so logic is constructive without it, and it can be dispensed with [Hacking] |
| 13845 | The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English [Hacking] |
| 13840 | First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with Löwenheim-Skolem [Hacking] |
| 13844 | A limitation of first-order logic is that it cannot handle branching quantifiers [Hacking] |
| 13842 | Second-order completeness seems to need intensional entities and possible worlds [Hacking] |
| 13837 | With a pure notion of truth and consequence, the meanings of connectives are fixed syntactically [Hacking] |
| 13839 | Perhaps variables could be dispensed with, by arrows joining places in the scope of quantifiers [Hacking] |
| 13843 | If it is a logic, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for it [Hacking] |
| 6007 | If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 6006 | If you say truly that you are lying, you are lying [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 6008 | Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 17377 | All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré] |
| 17376 | We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré] |
| 17390 | Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory [Dupré] |
| 17389 | A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one [Dupré] |
| 17388 | It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds [Dupré] |
| 7447 | Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812 [Hacking] |
| 7448 | Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence) [Hacking] |
| 7449 | Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments [Hacking] |
| 7450 | In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking] |
| 7451 | Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking] |
| 7452 | An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [Hacking, by PG] |
| 17374 | The possibility of prediction rests on determinism [Dupré] |
| 7459 | Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths [Hacking] |
| 17378 | Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience [Dupré] |
| 17381 | Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré] |
| 17385 | Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré] |
| 17375 | Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification [Dupré] |
| 17379 | Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals [Dupré] |
| 17384 | Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons [Dupré] |
| 17387 | Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy [Dupré] |
| 17382 | Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions [Dupré] |
| 17380 | Wales may count as fish [Dupré] |
| 17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
| 17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |