34 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| 9038 | We must distinguish what the speaker denotes by a name, from what the name denotes [Evans] |
| 5824 | How can an expression be a name, if names can change their denotation? [Evans] |
| 9042 | A private intention won't give a name a denotation; the practice needs it to be made public [Evans] |
| 9041 | The Causal Theory of Names is wrong, since the name 'Madagascar' actually changed denotation [Evans] |
| 16129 | Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe] |
| 16459 | Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans] |
| 16460 | Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis] |
| 16457 | There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis] |
| 14484 | If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson] |
| 16224 | There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG] |
| 14895 | 'Superficial' contingency: false in some world; 'Deep' contingency: no obvious verification [Evans, by Macià/Garcia-Carpentiro] |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 11881 | Rigid designators can be meaningful even if empty [Evans, by Mackie,P] |
| 7639 | The Homunculus Fallacy explains a subject perceiving objects by repeating the problem internally [Evans] |
| 12580 | Experiences have no conceptual content [Evans, by Greco] |
| 7643 | We have far fewer colour concepts than we have discriminations of colour [Evans] |
| 411 | If we succeed in speaking the truth, we cannot know we have done it [Xenophanes] |
| 412 | If God had not created honey, men would say figs are sweeter [Xenophanes] |
| 23794 | Some representational states, like perception, may be nonconceptual [Evans, by Schulte] |
| 16366 | The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans] |
| 12575 | Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them [Evans, by Peacocke] |
| 5825 | Speakers intend to refer to items that are the source of their information [Evans] |
| 5823 | The intended referent of a name needs to be the cause of the speaker's information about it [Evans] |
| 9039 | If descriptions are sufficient for reference, then I must accept a false reference if the descriptions fit [Evans] |
| 9043 | We use expressions 'deferentially', to conform to the use of other people [Evans] |
| 9040 | Charity should minimize inexplicable error, rather than maximising true beliefs [Evans] |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 1640 | The basic Eleatic belief was that all things are one [Xenophanes, by Plato] |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| 3055 | Xenophanes said the essence of God was spherical and utterly inhuman [Xenophanes, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 408 | Ethiopian gods have black hair, and Thracian gods have red hair [Xenophanes] |
| 407 | Mortals believe gods are born, and have voices and clothes just like mortals [Xenophanes] |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |