49 ideas
| 2956 | There is nothing so obvious that a philosopher cannot be found to deny it [Lockwood] |
| 2963 | There may only be necessary and sufficient conditions (and counterfactuals) because we intervene in the world [Lockwood] |
| 2958 | No one has ever succeeded in producing an acceptable non-trivial analysis of anything [Lockwood] |
| 2959 | If something is described in two different ways, is that two facts, or one fact presented in two ways? [Lockwood] |
| 15879 | The Square of Opposition has two contradictory pairs, one contrary pair, and one sub-contrary pair [Harré] |
| 15891 | Traditional quantifiers combine ordinary language generality and ontology assumptions [Harré] |
| 15878 | Some quantifiers, such as 'any', rule out any notion of order within their range [Harré] |
| 2969 | How does a direct realist distinguish a building from Buckingham Palace? [Lockwood] |
| 15874 | Scientific properties are not observed qualities, but the dispositions which create them [Harré] |
| 15884 | Laws of nature remain the same through any conditions, if the underlying mechanisms are unchanged [Harré] |
| 2970 | Dogs seem to have beliefs, and beliefs require concepts [Lockwood] |
| 2961 | Empiricism is a theory of meaning as well as of knowledge [Lockwood] |
| 2960 | Commonsense realism must account for the similarity of genuine perceptions and known illusions [Lockwood] |
| 15880 | In physical sciences particular observations are ordered, but in biology only the classes are ordered [Harré] |
| 15869 | Reports of experiments eliminate the experimenter, and present results as the behaviour of nature [Harré] |
| 15881 | We can save laws from counter-instances by treating the latter as analytic definitions [Harré] |
| 15882 | Since there are three different dimensions for generalising laws, no one system of logic can cover them [Harré] |
| 15888 | The grue problem shows that natural kinds are central to science [Harré] |
| 15887 | 'Grue' introduces a new causal hypothesis - that emeralds can change colour [Harré] |
| 15889 | It is because ravens are birds that their species and their colour might be connected [Harré] |
| 15890 | Non-black non-ravens just aren't part of the presuppositions of 'all ravens are black' [Harré] |
| 15885 | The necessity of Newton's First Law derives from the nature of material things, not from a mechanism [Harré] |
| 2952 | A 1988 estimate gave the brain 3 x 10-to-the-14 synaptic junctions [Lockwood] |
| 2964 | How come unconscious states also cause behaviour? [Lockwood] |
| 2951 | Could there be unconscious beliefs and desires? [Lockwood] |
| 2953 | Fish may operate by blindsight [Lockwood] |
| 15868 | Idealisation idealises all of a thing's properties, but abstraction leaves some of them out [Harré] |
| 2967 | We might even learn some fundamental physics from introspection [Lockwood] |
| 2966 | Can phenomenal qualities exist unsensed? [Lockwood] |
| 2955 | If mental events occur in time, then relativity says they are in space [Lockwood] |
| 2950 | Only logical positivists ever believed behaviourism [Lockwood] |
| 2954 | Identity theory likes the identity of lightning and electrical discharges [Lockwood] |
| 2971 | Perhaps logical positivism showed that there is no dividing line between science and metaphysics [Lockwood] |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 15886 | Science rests on the principle that nature is a hierarchy of natural kinds [Harré] |
| 2962 | Maybe causation is a form of rational explanation, not an observation or a state of mind [Lockwood] |
| 15864 | Classification is just as important as laws in natural science [Harré] |
| 15865 | Newton's First Law cannot be demonstrated experimentally, as that needs absence of external forces [Harré] |
| 15862 | Laws can come from data, from theory, from imagination and concepts, or from procedures [Harré] |
| 15870 | Are laws of nature about events, or types and universals, or dispositions, or all three? [Harré] |
| 15871 | Are laws about what has or might happen, or do they also cover all the possibilities? [Harré] |
| 15876 | Maybe laws of nature are just relations between properties? [Harré] |
| 15860 | We take it that only necessary happenings could be laws [Harré] |
| 15867 | Laws describe abstract idealisations, not the actual mess of nature [Harré] |
| 15872 | Must laws of nature be universal, or could they be local? [Harré] |
| 15892 | Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms [Harré] |
| 15875 | In counterfactuals we keep substances constant, and imagine new situations for them [Harré] |
| 2949 | We have the confused idea that time is a process of change [Lockwood] |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |