44 ideas
1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
19090 | If we can't check our language against experience, philosophy is just comparing beliefs and words [Rorty] |
23770 | Reductive analysis makes a concept clearer, by giving an alternative simpler set [Williams,NE] |
2557 | Analytical philosophy seems to have little interest in how to tell a good analysis from a bad one [Rorty] |
2556 | Rational certainty may be victory in argument rather than knowledge of facts [Rorty] |
23769 | Promoting an ontology by its implied good metaphysic is an 'argument-by-display' [Williams,NE] |
4726 | Rorty seems to view truth as simply being able to hold one's view against all comers [Rorty, by O'Grady] |
2549 | For James truth is "what it is better for us to believe" rather than a correct picture of reality [Rorty] |
23783 | Change exists, it is causal, and it needs an explanation [Williams,NE] |
23784 | Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE] |
23790 | Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE] |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
23775 | Powers are 'multi-track' if they can produce a variety of manifestations [Williams,NE] |
23780 | Every possible state of affairs is written into its originating powers [Williams,NE] |
23789 | Naming powers is unwise, because that it usually done by a single manifestation [Williams,NE] |
23771 | Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE] |
23776 | Rather than pure powers or pure categoricals, I favour basics which are both at once [Williams,NE] |
23777 | Powers are more complicated than properties which are always on display [Williams,NE] |
23774 | There are basic powers, which underlie dispositions, potentialities, capacities etc [Williams,NE] |
23791 | Dispositions are just useful descriptions, which are explained by underlying powers [Williams,NE] |
23772 | If objects are property bundles, the properties need combining powers [Williams,NE] |
23788 | Four-Dimensional is Perdurantism (temporal parts), plus Eternalism [Williams,NE] |
3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
2548 | If knowledge is merely justified belief, justification is social [Rorty] |
6599 | Knowing has no definable essence, but is a social right, found in the context of conversations [Rorty] |
2566 | You can't debate about whether to have higher standards for the application of words [Rorty] |
2553 | The mind is a property, or it is baffling [Rorty] |
2550 | Pain lacks intentionality; beliefs lack qualia [Rorty] |
2554 | Is intentionality a special sort of function? [Rorty] |
2565 | Nature has no preferred way of being represented [Rorty] |
2560 | Can meanings remain the same when beliefs change? [Rorty] |
2562 | A theory of reference seems needed to pick out objects without ghostly inner states [Rorty] |
2559 | Davidson's theory of meaning focuses not on terms, but on relations between sentences [Rorty] |
2558 | Since Hegel we have tended to see a human as merely animal if it is outside a society [Rorty] |
1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
23785 | Causation needs to explain stasis, as well as change [Williams,NE] |
23782 | Causation is the exercise of powers [Williams,NE] |
23787 | If causes and effects overlap, that makes changes impossible [Williams,NE] |
23778 | Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states [Williams,NE] |
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] |