56 ideas
| 23269 | Philosophy must start from clearly observed facts [Galen] |
| 14092 | Philosophers are often too fussy about words, dismissing perfectly useful ordinary terms [Rosen] |
| 23248 | Early empiricists said reason was just a useless concept introduced by philosophers [Galen, by Frede,M] |
| 14100 | Figuring in the definition of a thing doesn't make it a part of that thing [Rosen] |
| 7791 | The simplest of the logics based on possible worlds is Lewis's S5 [Lewis,CI, by Girle] |
| 18851 | Pairing (with Extensionality) guarantees an infinity of sets, just from a single element [Rosen] |
| 9358 | There are several logics, none of which will ever derive falsehoods from truth [Lewis,CI] |
| 9357 | Excluded middle is just our preference for a simplified dichotomy in experience [Lewis,CI] |
| 9364 | Names represent a uniformity in experience, or they name nothing [Lewis,CI] |
| 14096 | Explanations fail to be monotonic [Rosen] |
| 14097 | Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items [Rosen] |
| 14095 | Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients [Rosen] |
| 14093 | An 'intrinsic' property is one that depends on a thing and its parts, and not on its relations [Rosen] |
| 8915 | How we refer to abstractions is much less clear than how we refer to other things [Rosen] |
| 18852 | A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen] |
| 11002 | Equating necessity with informal provability is the S4 conception of necessity [Lewis,CI, by Read] |
| 18849 | Metaphysical necessity is absolute and universal; metaphysical possibility is very tolerant [Rosen] |
| 18850 | 'Metaphysical' modality is the one that makes the necessity or contingency of laws of nature interesting [Rosen] |
| 18858 | Sets, universals and aggregates may be metaphysically necessary in one sense, but not another [Rosen] |
| 14094 | The excellent notion of metaphysical 'necessity' cannot be defined [Rosen] |
| 18857 | Standard Metaphysical Necessity: P holds wherever the actual form of the world holds [Rosen] |
| 18856 | Non-Standard Metaphysical Necessity: when ¬P is incompatible with the nature of things [Rosen] |
| 18848 | Something may be necessary because of logic, but is that therefore a special sort of necessity? [Rosen] |
| 9362 | Necessary truths are those we will maintain no matter what [Lewis,CI] |
| 18855 | Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds [Rosen] |
| 7803 | Modal logic began with translation difficulties for 'If...then' [Lewis,CI, by Girle] |
| 14101 | Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws? [Rosen] |
| 18853 | A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it [Rosen] |
| 9365 | We can maintain a priori principles come what may, but we can also change them [Lewis,CI] |
| 21500 | We rely on memory for empirical beliefs because they mutually support one another [Lewis,CI] |
| 21501 | If we doubt memories we cannot assess our doubt, or what is being doubted [Lewis,CI] |
| 6556 | If anything is to be probable, then something must be certain [Lewis,CI] |
| 21498 | Congruents assertions increase the probability of each individual assertion in the set [Lewis,CI] |
| 23266 | The spirit in the soul wants freedom, power and honour [Galen] |
| 6003 | Galen showed by experiment that the brain controls the body [Galen, by Hankinson] |
| 23219 | Stopping the heart doesn't terminate activity; pressing the brain does that [Galen, by Cobb] |
| 21799 | We just use the word 'faculty' when we don't know the psychological cause [Galen] |
| 23264 | Philosophers think faculties are in substances, and invent a faculty for every activity [Galen] |
| 23220 | The brain contains memory and reason, and is the source of sensation and decision [Galen] |
| 23265 | The rational part of the soul is the desire for truth, understanding and recollection [Galen] |
| 5828 | Extension is the class of things, intension is the correct definition of the thing, and intension determines extension [Lewis,CI] |
| 9361 | We have to separate the mathematical from physical phenomena by abstraction [Lewis,CI] |
| 8917 | The Way of Abstraction used to say an abstraction is an idea that was formed by abstracting [Rosen] |
| 8912 | Nowadays abstractions are defined as non-spatial, causally inert things [Rosen] |
| 8913 | Chess may be abstract, but it has existed in specific space and time [Rosen] |
| 8914 | Sets are said to be abstract and non-spatial, but a set of books can be on a shelf [Rosen] |
| 8916 | Conflating abstractions with either sets or universals is a big claim, needing a big defence [Rosen] |
| 8918 | Functional terms can pick out abstractions by asserting an equivalence relation [Rosen] |
| 8919 | Abstraction by equivalence relationships might prove that a train is an abstract entity [Rosen] |
| 14099 | 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen] |
| 7453 | Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment [Galen, by Hacking] |
| 6030 | Each part of the soul has its virtue - pleasure for appetite, success for competition, and rectitude for reason [Galen] |
| 23268 | We execute irredeemable people, to protect ourselves, as a deterrent, and ending a bad life [Galen] |
| 18854 | The MRL view says laws are the theorems of the simplest and strongest account of the world [Rosen] |
| 9363 | Science seeks classification which will discover laws, essences, and predictions [Lewis,CI] |
| 14098 | An acid is just a proton donor [Rosen] |