green numbers give full details.     |    back to list of philosophers     |     expand these ideas

Ideas of Thomas Mautner, by Text

[Australian, fl. 1996, Lecturer at Australian National University.]

1996 Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy
'definition' p.126 9959 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept
'definition' p.126 9961 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions
'definition' p.126 9958 Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance
'definition' p.126 9960 A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning
'definition' p.126 9957 Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes
p.102 p.102 6219 The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole
p.105 p.105 4782 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [PG]
p.111 p.111 6881 Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them
p.114 p.114 6886 Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid
p.114 p.114 6884 Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q'
p.114 p.114 6882 Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false
p.114 p.114 6885 Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case
p.115 p.115 6883 Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses
p.150 p.150 6896 Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended
p.151 p.151 6897 Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing
p.169 p.169 6877 Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems
p.179 p.179 5452 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature
p.179 p.179 5449 Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths
p.194 p.194 6898 Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional
p.214 p.214 6888 Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree
p.225 p.225 4783 Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [PG]
p.247 p.247 5439 The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted
p.270 p.270 6880 Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions
p.270 p.270 6879 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q
p.272 p.272 6899 The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance
p.279 p.279 6878 A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience
p.318 p.318 6887 Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage
p.464 p.464 6890 Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned
p.518 p.518 6452 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume
p.585 p.585 6889 Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false