48 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
8797 | The negation of all my beliefs about my current headache would be fully coherent [Sosa] |
8877 | We can't attain a coherent system by lopping off any beliefs that won't fit [Sosa] |
3750 | "It is true that x" means no more than x [Ramsey] |
13430 | Infinity: there is an infinity of distinguishable individuals [Ramsey] |
13428 | Reducibility: to every non-elementary function there is an equivalent elementary function [Ramsey] |
13427 | Either 'a = b' vacuously names the same thing, or absurdly names different things [Ramsey] |
13334 | Contradictions are either purely logical or mathematical, or they involved thought and language [Ramsey] |
8884 | The phenomenal concept of an eleven-dot pattern does not include the concept of eleven [Sosa] |
6409 | The 'simple theory of types' distinguishes levels among properties [Ramsey, by Grayling] |
13426 | Formalists neglect content, but the logicists have focused on generalizations, and neglected form [Ramsey] |
13425 | Formalism is hopeless, because it focuses on propositions and ignores concepts [Ramsey] |
8495 | The distinction between particulars and universals is a mistake made because of language [Ramsey] |
8493 | We could make universals collections of particulars, or particulars collections of their qualities [Ramsey] |
8494 | Obviously 'Socrates is wise' and 'Socrates has wisdom' express the same fact [Ramsey] |
8443 | Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa] |
13766 | 'If' is the same as 'given that', so the degrees of belief should conform to probability theory [Ramsey, by Ramsey] |
10993 | Ramsey's Test: believe the consequent if you believe the antecedent [Ramsey, by Read] |
14279 | Asking 'If p, will q?' when p is uncertain, then first add p hypothetically to your knowledge [Ramsey] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
8878 | It is acceptable to say a supermarket door 'knows' someone is approaching [Sosa] |
3212 | Beliefs are maps by which we steer [Ramsey] |
22328 | I just confront the evidence, and let it act on me [Ramsey] |
8880 | In reducing arithmetic to self-evident logic, logicism is in sympathy with rationalism [Sosa] |
8881 | Most of our knowledge has insufficient sensory support [Sosa] |
8794 | There are very few really obvious truths, and not much can be proved from them [Sosa] |
8882 | Perception may involve thin indexical concepts, or thicker perceptual concepts [Sosa] |
8883 | Do beliefs only become foundationally justified if we fully attend to features of our experience? [Sosa] |
8885 | Some features of a thought are known directly, but others must be inferred [Sosa] |
8876 | Much propositional knowledge cannot be formulated, as in recognising a face [Sosa] |
8796 | A single belief can trail two regresses, one terminating and one not [Sosa] |
8799 | If mental states are not propositional, they are logically dumb, and cannot be foundations [Sosa] |
8795 | Mental states cannot be foundational if they are not immune to error [Sosa] |
8879 | Fully comprehensive beliefs may not be knowledge [Sosa] |
8798 | Vision causes and justifies beliefs; but to some extent the cause is the justification [Sosa] |
22325 | A belief is knowledge if it is true, certain and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
19724 | Belief is knowledge if it is true, certain, and obtained by a reliable process [Ramsey] |
6894 | Mental terms can be replaced in a sentence by a variable and an existential quantifier [Ramsey] |
19143 | Ramsey gave axioms for an uncertain agent to decide their preferences [Ramsey, by Davidson] |
18818 | Sentence meaning is given by the actions to which it would lead [Ramsey] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
8442 | What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence? [Sosa] |
8445 | The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator [Sosa] |
8444 | Where is the necessary causation in the three people being tall making everybody tall? [Sosa] |
9418 | All knowledge needs systematizing, and the axioms would be the laws of nature [Ramsey] |
9420 | Causal laws result from the simplest axioms of a complete deductive system [Ramsey] |
1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |