468 ideas
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
9764 | Inspiration and social improvement need wisdom, but not professional philosophy [Quine] |
9763 | For a good theory of the world, we must focus on our flabby foundational vocabulary [Quine] |
18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
13736 | Quinean metaphysics just lists the beings, which is a domain with no internal structure [Schaffer,J on Quine] |
18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
1627 | Any statement can be held true if we make enough adjustment to the rest of the system [Quine] |
18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
22153 | Quine rejects Carnap's view that science and philosophy are distinct [Quine, by Boulter] |
22438 | Philosophy is largely concerned with finding the minimum that science could get by with [Quine] |
6891 | Quine's naturalistic and empirical view is based entirely on first-order logic and set theory [Quine, by Mautner] |
6310 | Enquiry needs a conceptual scheme, so we should retain the best available [Quine] |
11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
7001 | If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil] |
8996 | If if time is money then if time is not money then time is money then if if if time is not money... [Quine] |
22436 | Logicians don't paraphrase logic into language, because they think in the symbolic language [Quine] |
4588 | There is no such thing as 'science'; there are just many different sciences [Heil] |
16943 | Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine] |
9023 | If you say that a contradiction is true, you change the meaning of 'not', and so change the subject [Quine] |
6564 | To affirm 'p and not-p' is to have mislearned 'and' or 'not' [Quine] |
7037 | Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil] |
7038 | A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil] |
8208 | In arithmetic, ratios, negatives, irrationals and imaginaries were created in order to generalise [Quine] |
22431 | Good algorithms and theories need many occurrences of just a few elements [Quine] |
8207 | The quest for simplicity drove scientists to posit new entities, such as molecules in gases [Quine] |
1623 | Definition rests on synonymy, rather than explaining it [Quine] |
19048 | Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine] |
8995 | Definition by words is determinate but relative; fixing contexts could make it absolute [Quine] |
19047 | Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine] |
21699 | Russell offered a paraphrase of definite description, to avoid the commitment to objects [Quine] |
21697 | The Struthionic Fallacy is that of burying one's head in the sand [Quine] |
18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
7004 | The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil] |
21750 | Science is sympathetic to truth as correspondence, since it depends on observation [Quine] |
9012 | Talk of 'truth' when sentences are mentioned; it reminds us that reality is the point of sentences [Quine] |
9011 | Truth is redundant for single sentences; we do better to simply speak the sentence [Quine] |
22435 | The logician's '→' does not mean the English if-then [Quine] |
9013 | We can eliminate 'or' from our basic theory, by paraphrasing 'p or q' as 'not(not-p and not-q)' [Quine] |
13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
10928 | Maybe we can quantify modally if the objects are intensional, but it seems unlikely [Quine] |
5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
22433 | It is important that the quantification over temporal entities is timeless [Quine] |
3302 | Set theory is full of Platonist metaphysics, so Quine aimed to keep it separate from logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
9879 | NF has no models, but just blocks the comprehension axiom, to avoid contradictions [Quine, by Dummett] |
10211 | Quine wants V = L for a cleaner theory, despite the scepticism of most theorists [Quine, by Shapiro] |
21717 | Reducibility undermines type ramification, and is committed to the existence of functions [Quine, by Linsky,B] |
18170 | The Axiom of Reducibility is self-effacing: if true, it isn't needed [Quine] |
21695 | The set scheme discredited by paradoxes is actually the most natural one [Quine] |
21693 | Russell's antinomy challenged the idea that any condition can produce a set [Quine] |
3336 | Two things can never entail three things [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
7035 | God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil] |
13010 | In order to select the logic justified by experience, we would need to use a lot of logic [Boghossian on Quine] |
9020 | My logical grammar has sentences by predication, then negation, conjunction, and existential quantification [Quine] |
9028 | Maybe logical truth reflects reality, but in different ways in different languages [Quine] |
9002 | Elementary logic requires truth-functions, quantifiers (and variables), identity, and also sets of variables [Quine] |
13639 | Quine says higher-order items are intensional, and lack a clearly defined identity relation [Quine, by Shapiro] |
8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
10014 | Quine rejects second-order logic, saying that predicates refer to multiple objects [Quine, by Hodes] |
10828 | Quantifying over predicates is treating them as names of entities [Quine] |
13681 | Logical consequence is marked by being preserved under all nonlogical substitutions [Quine, by Sider] |
12219 | Whether a modal claim is true depends on how the object is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
22437 | Logical languages are rooted in ordinary language, and that connection must be kept [Quine] |
10064 | Quine quickly dismisses If-thenism [Quine, by Musgrave] |
20296 | Logic needs general conventions, but that needs logic to apply them to individual cases [Quine, by Rey] |
8998 | Claims that logic and mathematics are conventional are either empty, uninteresting, or false [Quine] |
8999 | Logic isn't conventional, because logic is needed to infer logic from conventions [Quine] |
9000 | If a convention cannot be communicated until after its adoption, what is its role? [Quine] |
19043 | Bivalence applies not just to sentences, but that general terms are true or false of each object [Quine] |
9024 | Excluded middle has three different definitions [Quine] |
10012 | Quantification theory can still be proved complete if we add identity [Quine] |
22434 | Reduction to logical forms first simplifies idioms and grammar, then finds a single reading of it [Quine] |
13829 | If logical truths essentially depend on logical constants, we had better define the latter [Hacking on Quine] |
1618 | We study bound variables not to know reality, but to know what reality language asserts [Quine] |
12221 | 'Corner quotes' (quasi-quotation) designate 'whatever these terms designate' [Quine] |
21698 | All relations, apart from ancestrals, can be reduced to simpler logic [Quine] |
8453 | If we had to name objects to make existence claims, we couldn't discuss all the real numbers [Quine] |
10925 | Failure of substitutivity shows that a personal name is not purely referential [Quine] |
19321 | We might do without names, by converting them into predicates [Quine, by Kirkham] |
8455 | Canonical notation needs quantification, variables and predicates, but not names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8456 | Quine extended Russell's defining away of definite descriptions, to also define away names [Quine, by Orenstein] |
9204 | Quine's arguments fail because he naively conflates names with descriptions [Fine,K on Quine] |
9016 | Names are not essential, because naming can be turned into predication [Quine] |
1611 | Names can be converted to descriptions, and Russell showed how to eliminate those [Quine] |
10926 | Quantifying into referentially opaque contexts often produces nonsense [Quine] |
10922 | Objects are the values of variables, so a referentially opaque context cannot be quantified into [Quine] |
10311 | No sense can be made of quantification into opaque contexts [Quine, by Hale] |
10538 | Finite quantification can be eliminated in favour of disjunction and conjunction [Quine, by Dummett] |
9015 | Universal quantification is widespread, but it is definable in terms of existential quantification [Quine] |
10793 | Quine thought substitutional quantification confused use and mention, but then saw its nominalist appeal [Quine, by Marcus (Barcan)] |
10801 | Either reference really matters, or we don't need to replace it with substitutions [Quine] |
21642 | If quantification is all substitutional, there is no ontology [Quine] |
9025 | You can't base quantification on substituting names for variables, if the irrationals cannot all be named [Quine] |
9026 | Some quantifications could be false substitutionally and true objectually, because of nameless objects [Quine] |
10705 | Putting a predicate letter in a quantifier is to make it the name of an entity [Quine] |
12798 | Plurals can in principle be paraphrased away altogether [Quine] |
9027 | A sentence is logically true if all sentences with that grammatical structure are true [Quine] |
21691 | Antinomies contradict accepted ways of reasoning, and demand revisions [Quine] |
21690 | Whenever the pursuer reaches the spot where the pursuer has been, the pursued has moved on [Quine] |
9003 | Set theory was struggling with higher infinities, when new paradoxes made it baffling [Quine] |
21689 | A barber shaves only those who do not shave themselves. So does he shave himself? [Quine] |
21694 | Membership conditions which involve membership and non-membership are paradoxical [Quine] |
21692 | If we write it as '"this sentence is false" is false', there is no paradox [Quine] |
8994 | If analytic geometry identifies figures with arithmetical relations, logicism can include geometry [Quine] |
16949 | Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine] |
17905 | Any progression will do nicely for numbers; they can all then be used to measure multiplicity [Quine] |
18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
8997 | There are four different possible conventional accounts of geometry [Quine] |
8463 | Maths can be reduced to logic and set theory [Quine] |
8203 | All the arithmetical entities can be reduced to classes of integers, and hence to sets [Quine] |
10242 | I apply structuralism to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately [Quine] |
18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
21696 | Nominalism rejects both attributes and classes (where extensionalism accepts the classes) [Quine] |
17738 | Quine blurs the difference between knowledge of arithmetic and of physics [Jenkins on Quine] |
9556 | Nearly all of mathematics has to quantify over abstract objects [Quine] |
18198 | Mathematics is part of science; transfinite mathematics I take as mostly uninterpreted [Quine] |
8993 | If mathematics follows from definitions, then it is conventional, and part of logic [Quine] |
21557 | Russell confused use and mention, and reduced classes to properties, not to language [Quine, by Lackey] |
1613 | Logicists cheerfully accept reference to bound variables and all sorts of abstract entities [Quine] |
1635 | Mathematics reduces to set theory (which is a bit vague and unobvious), but not to logic proper [Quine] |
9004 | If set theory is not actually a branch of logic, then Frege's derivation of arithmetic would not be from logic [Quine] |
1616 | Formalism says maths is built of meaningless notations; these build into rules which have meaning [Quine] |
1615 | Intuitionism says classes are invented, and abstract entities are constructed from specified ingredients [Quine] |
8466 | For Quine, intuitionist ontology is inadequate for classical mathematics [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8467 | Intuitionists only admit numbers properly constructed, but classical maths covers all reals in a 'limit' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
1614 | Conceptualism holds that there are universals but they are mind-made [Quine] |
10241 | For Quine, there is only one way to exist [Quine, by Shapiro] |
16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
4064 | The idea of a thing and the idea of existence are two sides of the same coin [Quine, by Crane] |
19277 | Quine rests existence on bound variables, because he thinks singular terms can be analysed away [Quine, by Hale] |
16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
1633 | Absolute ontological questions are meaningless, because the answers are circular definitions [Quine] |
11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
7017 | The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil] |
18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
4616 | A higher level is 'supervenient' if it is determined by lower levels, but has its own natural laws [Heil] |
7003 | There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil] |
1630 | We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine] |
11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
16939 | Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine] |
12210 | Quine's ontology is wrong; his question is scientific, and his answer is partly philosophical [Fine,K on Quine] |
7045 | Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil] |
7065 | Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil] |
18438 | Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine] |
10243 | My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine] |
19042 | Terms learned by ostension tend to be vague, because that must be quick and unrefined [Quine] |
8496 | What actually exists does not, of course, depend on language [Quine] |
11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
19485 | Names have no ontological commitment, because we can deny that they name anything [Quine] |
10667 | A logically perfect language could express all truths, so all truths must be logically expressible [Quine, by Hossack] |
19486 | We can use quantification for commitment to unnameable things like the real numbers [Quine] |
5747 | "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia] |
1610 | To be is to be the value of a variable, which amounts to being in the range of reference of a pronoun [Quine] |
16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
16021 | Quine says we can expand predicates easily (ideology), but not names (ontology) [Quine, by Noonan] |
16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
8459 | Fictional quantification has no ontology, so we study ontology through scientific theories [Quine, by Orenstein] |
8497 | An ontology is like a scientific theory; we accept the simplest scheme that fits disorderly experiences [Quine] |
4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
18964 | Ontology is relative to both a background theory and a translation manual [Quine] |
18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
3325 | For Quine everything exists theoretically, as reference, predication and quantification [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
16261 | If commitment rests on first-order logic, we obviously lose the ontology concerning predication [Maudlin on Quine] |
7698 | If to be is to be the value of a variable, we must already know the values available [Jacquette on Quine] |
19492 | Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology [Yablo on Quine] |
14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
16462 | The quest for ultimate categories is the quest for a simple clear pattern of notation [Quine] |
7020 | Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil] |
11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
21339 | We want the ontology of relations, not just a formal way of specifying them [Heil] |
21349 | Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil] |
21340 | Maybe all the other features of the world can be reduced to relations [Heil] |
18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
21348 | In the case of 5 and 6, their relational truthmaker is just the numbers [Heil] |
21351 | Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil] |
21344 | If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil] |
8461 | The category of objects incorporates the old distinction of substances and their modes [Quine] |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
4603 | Functionalists in Fodor's camp usually say that a genuine property is one that figures in some causal laws [Heil] |
4617 | A stone does not possess the property of being a stone; its other properties make it a stone [Heil] |
18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
4612 | Complex properties are just arrangements of simple properties; they do not "emerge" as separate [Heil] |
4615 | Complex properties are not new properties, they are merely new combinations of properties [Heil] |
18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
7007 | I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil] |
8534 | Quine says the predicate of a true statement has no ontological implications [Quine, by Armstrong] |
18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
4587 | From the property predicates P and Q, we can get 'P or Q', but it doesn't have to designate another property [Heil] |
7015 | A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil] |
18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
7925 | There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine] |
10295 | Quine suggests that properties can be replaced with extensional entities like sets [Quine, by Shapiro] |
3322 | Quine says that if second-order logic is to quantify over properties, that can be done in first-order predicate logic [Quine, by Benardete,JA] |
6078 | Quine brought classes into semantics to get rid of properties [Quine, by McGinn] |
9017 | Predicates are not names; predicates are the other parties to predication [Quine] |
8479 | Don't analyse 'red is a colour' as involving properties. Say 'all red things are coloured things' [Quine, by Orenstein] |
18439 | Because things can share attributes, we cannot individuate attributes clearly [Quine] |
7042 | A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil] |
4611 | The supporters of 'tropes' treat objects as bundles of tropes, when I think objects 'possess' properties [Heil] |
14296 | Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine] |
7023 | Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil] |
21350 | If properties are powers, then causal relations are internal relations [Heil] |
18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
16948 | Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine] |
15723 | Either dispositions rest on structures, or we keep saying 'all things being equal' [Quine] |
7025 | Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil] |
15490 | Explain unmanifested dispositions as structural similarities to objects which have manifested them [Quine, by Martin,CB] |
16945 | We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine] |
1612 | Realism, conceptualism and nominalism in medieval universals reappear in maths as logicism, intuitionism and formalism [Quine] |
3751 | Universals are acceptable if they are needed to make an accepted theory true [Quine, by Jacquette] |
7034 | Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil] |
7039 | How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil] |
15402 | There is no entity called 'redness', and that some things are red is ultimate and irreducible [Quine] |
9006 | Commitment to universals is as arbitrary or pragmatic as the adoption of a new system of bookkeeping [Quine] |
7009 | Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil] |
7041 | Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil] |
4443 | Quine has argued that predicates do not have any ontological commitment [Quine, by Armstrong] |
11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
8504 | Quine aims to deal with properties by the use of eternal open sentences, or classes [Quine, by Devitt] |
18442 | You only know an attribute if you know what things have it [Quine] |
7970 | Quine is committed to sets, but is more a Class Nominalist than a Platonist [Quine, by Macdonald,C] |
7032 | Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil] |
11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
1628 | If physical objects are a myth, they are useful for making sense of experience [Quine] |
7924 | The notion of a physical object is by far the most useful one for science [Quine] |
8498 | Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine] |
8464 | Physical objects in space-time are just events or processes, no matter how disconnected [Quine] |
9018 | A physical object is the four-dimensional material content of a portion of space-time [Quine] |
7008 | Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil] |
7018 | Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil] |
13387 | Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine] |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
15783 | Definite descriptions can't unambiguously pick out an object which doesn't exist [Lycan on Quine] |
8277 | I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine] |
18441 | No entity without identity (which requires a principle of individuation) [Quine] |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
7019 | Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil] |
7046 | Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil] |
7047 | Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil] |
7048 | Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil] |
18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
10923 | Aristotelian essentialism says a thing has some necessary and some non-necessary properties [Quine] |
10929 | Aristotelian essence of the object has become the modern essence of meaning [Quine] |
10930 | Quantification into modal contexts requires objects to have an essence [Quine] |
8482 | Mathematicians must be rational but not two-legged, cyclists the opposite. So a mathematical cyclist? [Quine] |
12136 | Cyclist are not actually essentially two-legged [Brody on Quine] |
13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
9019 | Four-d objects helps predication of what no longer exists, and quantification over items from different times [Quine] |
4592 | If you can have the boat without its current planks, and the planks with no boat, the planks aren't the boat [Heil] |
17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
18965 | We know what things are by distinguishing them, so identity is part of ontology [Quine] |
17594 | We can paraphrase 'x=y' as a sequence of the form 'if Fx then Fy' [Quine] |
18440 | Identity of physical objects is just being coextensive [Quine] |
11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
10921 | Necessity can attach to statement-names, to statements, and to open sentences [Quine] |
14645 | To be necessarily greater than 7 is not a trait of 7, but depends on how 7 is referred to [Quine] |
12188 | Contrary to some claims, Quine does not deny logical necessity [Quine, by McFetridge] |
9001 | Frege moved Kant's question about a priori synthetic to 'how is logical certainty possible?' [Quine] |
9201 | Whether 9 is necessarily greater than 7 depends on how '9' is described [Quine, by Fine,K] |
15090 | Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths [Quine, by Shoemaker] |
10927 | Necessity only applies to objects if they are distinctively specified [Quine] |
4577 | There is no necessity higher than natural necessity, and that is just regularity [Quine] |
8206 | Necessity could be just generalisation over classes, or (maybe) quantifying over possibilia [Quine] |
8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
10924 | Necessity is in the way in which we say things, and not things themselves [Quine] |
15782 | Quine wants identity and individuation-conditions for possibilia [Quine, by Lycan] |
9014 | Some conditionals can be explained just by negation and conjunction: not(p and not-q) [Quine] |
15725 | Normal conditionals have a truth-value gap when the antecedent is false. [Quine] |
15722 | Conditionals are pointless if the truth value of the antecedent is known [Quine] |
22432 | Normally conditionals have no truth value; it is the consequent which has a conditional truth value [Quine] |
15719 | We feign belief in counterfactual antecedents, and assess how convincing the consequent is [Quine] |
15721 | Counterfactuals are plausible when dispositions are involved, as they imply structures [Quine] |
15724 | Counterfactuals have no place in a strict account of science [Quine] |
15720 | What stays the same in assessing a counterfactual antecedent depends on context [Quine] |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
8856 | Quine's indispensability argument said arguments for abstracta were a posteriori [Quine, by Yablo] |
2796 | For Quine the only way to know a necessity is empirically [Quine, by Dancy,J] |
4586 | You can't embrace the formal apparatus of possible worlds, but reject the ontology [Heil] |
13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
12443 | Can an unactualized possible have self-identity, and be distinct from other possibles? [Quine] |
9203 | We can't quantify in modal contexts, because the modality depends on descriptions, not objects [Quine, by Fine,K] |
13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
18969 | How do you distinguish three beliefs from four beliefs or two beliefs? [Quine] |
18209 | We can never translate our whole language of objects into phenomenalism [Quine] |
4591 | Idealism explains appearances by identifying appearances with reality [Heil] |
9379 | A sentence is obvious if it is true, and any speaker of the language will instantly agree to it [Quine] |
9005 | Examination of convention in the a priori begins to blur the distinction with empirical knowledge [Quine] |
9383 | Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine] |
12424 | Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher] |
9337 | Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich] |
9338 | Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine] |
9340 | Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine] |
7028 | If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil] |
7029 | Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil] |
7030 | Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil] |
7051 | Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil] |
7044 | Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil] |
7052 | Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil] |
7053 | Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil] |
21686 | Sense-data are dubious abstractions, with none of the plausibility of tables [Quine] |
1620 | Empiricism makes a basic distinction between truths based or not based on facts [Quine] |
1629 | Our outer beliefs must match experience, and our inner ones must be simple [Quine] |
19049 | In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine] |
8450 | Quine's empiricism is based on whole theoretical systems, not on single mental events [Quine, by Orenstein] |
19046 | Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine] |
21685 | Empiricism says evidence rests on the senses, but that insight is derived from science [Quine] |
19488 | The second dogma is linking every statement to some determinate observations [Quine, by Yablo] |
7627 | You can't reduce epistemology to psychology, because that presupposes epistemology [Maund on Quine] |
8871 | We should abandon a search for justification or foundations, and focus on how knowledge is acquired [Quine, by Davidson] |
8826 | If we abandon justification and normativity in epistemology, we must also abandon knowledge [Kim on Quine] |
8827 | Without normativity, naturalized epistemology isn't even about beliefs [Kim on Quine] |
8899 | Epistemology is a part of psychology, studying how our theories relate to our evidence [Quine] |
3868 | To proclaim cultural relativism is to thereby rise above it [Quine, by Newton-Smith] |
1634 | Two things are relative - the background theory, and translating the object theory into the background theory [Quine] |
7066 | If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil] |
16944 | Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine] |
7021 | If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil] |
4630 | Two theories can be internally consistent and match all the facts, yet be inconsistent with one another [Quine, by Baggini /Fosl] |
21687 | It seems obvious to prefer the simpler of two theories, on grounds of beauty and convenience [Quine] |
21688 | There are four suspicious reasons why we prefer simpler theories [Quine] |
7026 | Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil] |
4713 | For Quine, theories are instruments used to make predictions about observations [Quine, by O'Grady] |
1625 | Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body [Quine] |
16941 | Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine] |
16940 | Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine] |
21748 | More careful inductions gradually lead to the hypothetico-deductive method [Quine] |
16933 | Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine] |
7060 | One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil] |
4610 | Different generations focus on either the quality of mind, or its scientific standing, or the content of thought [Heil] |
4618 | If minds are realised materially, it looks as if the material laws will pre-empt any causal role for mind [Heil] |
4621 | Whatever exists has qualities, so it is no surprise that states of minds have qualities [Heil] |
4623 | Propositional attitudes are not the only intentional states; there is also mental imagery [Heil] |
4626 | The widespread externalist view says intentionality has content because of causal links of agent to world [Heil] |
7010 | Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil] |
7054 | Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil] |
7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
16934 | General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine] |
16938 | To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine] |
16947 | Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine] |
8486 | Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine] |
4622 | Error must be possible in introspection, because error is possible in all judgements [Heil] |
4590 | If causation is just regularities in events, the interaction of mind and body is not a special problem [Heil] |
7061 | Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil] |
7063 | Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil] |
7064 | Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil] |
4614 | Disposition is a fundamental feature of reality, since basic particles are capable of endless possible interactions [Heil] |
4595 | No mental state entails inevitable behaviour, because other beliefs or desires may intervene [Heil] |
7027 | Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil] |
4599 | Hearts are material, but functionalism says the property of being a heart is not a material property [Heil] |
4624 | If you are a functionalist, there appears to be no room for qualia [Heil] |
7062 | Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil] |
4601 | Higher-level sciences cannot be reduced, because their concepts mark boundaries invisible at lower levels [Heil] |
4602 | Higher-level sciences designate real properties of objects, which are not reducible to lower levels [Heil] |
4593 | 'Property dualism' says mind and body are not substances, but distinct families of properties [Heil] |
7059 | The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil] |
4597 | Early identity theory talked of mind and brain 'processes', but now the focus is properties [Heil] |
3131 | Quine expresses the instrumental version of eliminativism [Quine, by Rey] |
4609 | It seems contradictory to be asked to believe that we can be eliminativist about beliefs [Heil] |
4596 | The appeal of the identity theory is its simplicity, and its solution to the mental causation problem [Heil] |
7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
8462 | A hallucination can, like an ague, be identified with its host; the ontology is physical, the idiom mental [Quine] |
4598 | Functionalists emphasise that mental processes are not to be reduced to what realises them [Heil] |
4619 | 'Multiple realisability' needs to clearly distinguish low-level realisers from what is realised [Heil] |
4620 | Multiple realisability is not a relation among properties, but an application of predicates to resembling things [Heil] |
7043 | Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil] |
4594 | A scientist could know everything about the physiology of headaches, but never have had one [Heil] |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
4625 | Is mental imagery pictorial, or is it propositional? [Heil] |
4607 | Folk psychology and neuroscience are no more competitors than cartography and geology are [Heil] |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
7058 | Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil] |
7057 | Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil] |
11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |
8898 | Inculcations of meanings of words rests ultimately on sensory evidence [Quine] |
1626 | It is troublesome nonsense to split statements into a linguistic and a factual component [Quine] |
7013 | The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil] |
22430 | If we understand a statement, we know the circumstances of its truth [Quine] |
4605 | Truth-conditions correspond to the idea of 'literal meaning' [Heil] |
21700 | Taking sentences as the unit of meaning makes useful paraphrasing possible [Quine] |
21701 | Knowing a word is knowing the meanings of sentences which contain it [Quine] |
1619 | There is an attempt to give a verificationist account of meaning, without the error of reducing everything to sensations [Dennett on Quine] |
4606 | To understand 'birds warble' and 'tigers growl', you must also understand 'tigers warble' [Heil] |
7317 | 'Renate' and 'cordate' have identical extensions, but are not synonymous [Quine, by Miller,A] |
9009 | Single words are strongly synonymous if their interchange preserves truth [Quine] |
1617 | The word 'meaning' is only useful when talking about significance or about synonymy [Quine] |
1621 | Once meaning and reference are separated, meaning ceases to seem important [Quine] |
8202 | Meaning is essence divorced from things and wedded to words [Quine] |
9471 | Intensions are creatures of darkness which should be exorcised [Quine] |
1609 | I do not believe there is some abstract entity called a 'meaning' which we can 'have' [Quine] |
4712 | Quine says there is no matter of fact about reference - it is 'inscrutable' [Quine, by O'Grady] |
8470 | Reference is inscrutable, because we cannot choose between theories of numbers [Quine, by Orenstein] |
15788 | Syntax and semantics are indeterminate, and modern 'semantics' is a bogus subject [Quine, by Lycan] |
19159 | Quine relates predicates to their objects, by being 'true of' them [Quine, by Davidson] |
16932 | Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine] |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
18967 | A 'proposition' is said to be the timeless cognitive part of the meaning of a sentence [Quine] |
4604 | If propositions are abstract entities, how do human beings interact with them? [Heil] |
7002 | If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil] |
18968 | The problem with propositions is their individuation. When do two sentences express one proposition? [Quine] |
9007 | It makes no sense to say that two sentences express the same proposition [Quine] |
9008 | There is no rule for separating the information from other features of sentences [Quine] |
9010 | We can abandon propositions, and just talk of sentences and equivalence [Quine] |
9371 | Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine] |
19487 | Without the analytic/synthetic distinction, Carnap's ontology/empirical distinction collapses [Quine] |
9366 | Quine's attack on analyticity undermined linguistic views of necessity, and analytic views of the a priori [Quine, by Boghossian] |
14473 | Quine attacks the Fregean idea that we can define analyticity through synonyous substitution [Quine, by Thomasson] |
7321 | The last two parts of 'Two Dogmas' are much the best [Miller,A on Quine] |
8803 | Erasing the analytic/synthetic distinction got rid of meanings, and saved philosophy of language [Davidson on Quine] |
17737 | The analytic needs excessively small units of meaning and empirical confirmation [Quine, by Jenkins] |
1624 | If we try to define analyticity by synonymy, that leads back to analyticity [Quine] |
8900 | In observation sentences, we could substitute community acceptance for analyticity [Quine] |
8201 | The distinction between meaning and further information is as vague as the essence/accident distinction [Quine] |
19050 | Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine] |
1622 | Did someone ever actually define 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man'? [Quine] |
21338 | I will even consider changing a meaning to save a law; I question the meaning-fact cleavage [Quine] |
9021 | A good way of explaining an expression is saying what conditions make its contexts true [Quine] |
19045 | Translation is too flimsy a notion to support theories of cultural incommensurability [Quine] |
3988 | Indeterminacy of translation also implies indeterminacy in interpreting people's mental states [Dennett on Quine] |
6311 | The firmer the links between sentences and stimuli, the less translations can diverge [Quine] |
6312 | We can never precisely pin down how to translate the native word 'Gavagai' [Quine] |
6313 | Stimulus synonymy of 'Gavagai' and 'Rabbit' does not even guarantee they are coextensive [Quine] |
6317 | Dispositions to speech behaviour, and actual speech, are never enough to fix any one translation [Quine] |
1631 | You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine] |
1632 | Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine] |
18963 | Indeterminacy translating 'rabbit' depends on translating individuation terms [Quine] |
6315 | We should be suspicious of a translation which implies that a people have very strange beliefs [Quine] |
6314 | Weird translations are always possible, but they improve if we impose our own logic on them [Quine] |
7330 | The principle of charity only applies to the logical constants [Quine, by Miller,A] |
21749 | Altruistic values concern other persons, and ceremonial values concern practices [Quine] |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
21751 | Love seems to diminish with distance from oneself [Quine] |
6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
7375 | Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett] |
16935 | If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine] |
16936 | Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine] |
16937 | You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine] |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
10370 | Causal relata are individuated by coarse spacetime regions [Quine, by Schaffer,J] |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
7016 | The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil] |
16942 | It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine] |
17862 | Essence gives an illusion of understanding [Quine, by Almog] |
10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
18970 | The concept of a 'point' makes no sense without the idea of absolute position [Quine] |
13713 | Quine holds time to be 'space-like': past objects are as real as spatially remote ones [Quine, by Sider] |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
7036 | The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil] |