32 ideas
| 5515 | Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit] |
| 5516 | Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG] |
| 16185 | Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N] |
| 12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
| 17503 | Theories can never represent accurately, because their components are abstract [Cartwright,N, by Portides] |
| 16182 | Two main types of explanation are by causes, or by citing a theoretical framework [Cartwright,N] |
| 16184 | An explanation is a model that fits a theory and predicts the phenomenological laws [Cartwright,N] |
| 16167 | Laws get the facts wrong, and explanation rests on improvements and qualifications of laws [Cartwright,N] |
| 16169 | Laws apply to separate domains, but real explanations apply to intersecting domains [Cartwright,N] |
| 16176 | Covering-law explanation lets us explain storms by falling barometers [Cartwright,N] |
| 16177 | I disagree with the covering-law view that there is a law to cover every single case [Cartwright,N] |
| 16180 | You can't explain one quail's behaviour by just saying that all quails do it [Cartwright,N] |
| 16171 | The covering law view assumes that each phenomenon has a 'right' explanation [Cartwright,N] |
| 16183 | In science, best explanations have regularly turned out to be false [Cartwright,N] |
| 3539 | Personal identity is just causally related mental states [Parfit, by Maslin] |
| 5514 | Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit] |
| 1393 | One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit] |
| 5521 | If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit] |
| 5522 | Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit] |
| 1392 | If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit] |
| 5519 | It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit] |
| 5520 | If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit] |
| 1391 | Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit] |
| 5518 | It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit] |
| 9762 | We should focus less on subjects of experience, and more on the experiences themselves [Parfit] |
| 16175 | A cause won't increase the effect frequency if other causes keep interfering [Cartwright,N] |
| 6781 | There are fundamental explanatory laws (false!), and phenomenological laws (regularities) [Cartwright,N, by Bird] |
| 16166 | Laws of appearances are 'phenomenological'; laws of reality are 'theoretical' [Cartwright,N] |
| 16179 | Good organisation may not be true, and the truth may not organise very much [Cartwright,N] |
| 16170 | To get from facts to equations, we need a prepared descriptions suited to mathematics [Cartwright,N] |
| 16181 | Simple laws have quite different outcomes when they act in combinations [Cartwright,N] |
| 16178 | There are few laws for when one theory meets another [Cartwright,N] |