45 ideas
2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
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] |
2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
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] |
13933 | Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap] |
2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
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] |
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] |
2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
13932 | Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap] |
2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
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] |
2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
16362 | An identity statement aims at getting the hearer to merge two mental files [Lockwood] |
12131 | All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody] |
2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
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] |
4055 | It isn't obviously wicked to destroy a potential human being (e.g. an ununited egg and sperm) [Lockwood] |
4056 | If the soul is held to leave the body at brain-death, it should arrive at the time of brain-creation [Lockwood] |
4054 | I may exist before I become a person, just as I exist before I become an adult [Lockwood] |
2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |