Ideas of Ian Hacking, by Theme

[Canadian, b.1936, At theUniversity of Toronto, and at Stanford University.]

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1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy

7454	Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher

2. Reason / D. Definition / 3. Types of Definition

13838

A decent modern definition should always imply a semantics

4. Formal Logic / B. Propositional Logic PL / 2. Tools of Propositional Logic / d. Basic theorems of PL

13833

'Thinning' ('dilution') is the key difference between deduction (which allows it) and induction

13834

Gentzen's Cut Rule (or transitivity of deduction) is 'If A |- B and B |- C, then A |- C'

13835

Only Cut reduces complexity, so logic is constructive without it, and it can be dispensed with

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 4. Pure Logic

13845

The various logics are abstractions made from terms like 'if...then' in English

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 5. First-Order Logic

13844

A limitation of first-order logic is that it cannot handle branching quantifiers

13840

First-order logic is the strongest complete compact theory with Löwenheim-Skolem

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic

13842

Second-order completeness seems to need intensional entities and possible worlds

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives

13837

With a pure notion of truth and consequence, the meanings of connectives are fixed syntactically

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 4. Variables in Logic

13839

Perhaps variables could be dispensed with, by arrows joining places in the scope of quantifiers

5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 3. Löwenheim-Skolem Theorems

13843

If it is a logic, the Löwenheim-Skolem theorem holds for it

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 6. Probability

7447	Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812

7448	Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence)

7449	Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence

7450	In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence

7451	Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence

14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment

7452	An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [PG]

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation

7459	Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths