91 ideas
6979 | Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences [Jackson] |
6983 | Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis [Jackson] |
6980 | Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story [Jackson] |
14707 | Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Jackson, by Schroeter] |
6779 | Instrumentalists say distinctions between observation and theory vanish with ostensive definition [Bird] |
20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
7005 | Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account [Jackson] |
6994 | Truth supervenes on being [Jackson] |
6984 | Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level [Jackson] |
6780 | Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories [Bird] |
6978 | Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson] |
6993 | Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans [Jackson] |
6987 | We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity [Jackson] |
6796 | Subjective probability measures personal beliefs; objective probability measures the chance of an event happening [Bird] |
6797 | Objective probability of tails measures the bias of the coin, not our beliefs about it [Bird] |
6988 | Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework [Jackson] |
6975 | Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson] |
6982 | Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible [Jackson] |
6991 | We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson] |
6800 | Many philosophers rate justification as a more important concept than knowledge [Bird] |
6786 | As science investigates more phenomena, the theories it needs decreases [Bird] |
6792 | If theories need observation, and observations need theories, how do we start? [Bird] |
6757 | Explanation predicts after the event; prediction explains before the event [Bird] |
6805 | Relativity ousted Newtonian mechanics despite a loss of simplicity [Bird] |
6777 | Realists say their theories involve truth and the existence of their phenomena [Bird] |
6804 | There is no agreement on scientific method - because there is no such thing [Bird] |
6778 | Instrumentalists regard theories as tools for prediction, with truth being irrelevant [Bird] |
6775 | Induction is inference to the best explanation, where the explanation is a law [Bird] |
6791 | If Hume is right about induction, there is no scientific knowledge [Bird] |
6790 | Anything justifying inferences from observed to unobserved must itself do that [Bird] |
6738 | Any conclusion can be drawn from an induction, if we use grue-like predicates [Bird] |
6739 | Several months of observing beech trees supports the deciduous and evergreen hypotheses [Bird] |
6799 | We normally learn natural kinds from laws, but Goodman shows laws require prior natural kinds [Bird] |
6798 | Bayesianism claims to find rationality and truth in induction, and show how science works [Bird] |
6752 | The objective component of explanations is the things that must exist for the explanation [Bird] |
6754 | We talk both of 'people' explaining things, and of 'facts' explaining things [Bird] |
6750 | Explanations are causal, nomic, psychological, psychoanalytic, Darwinian or functional [Bird] |
6761 | Contrastive explanations say why one thing happened but not another [Bird] |
6758 | 'Covering law' explanations only work if no other explanations are to be found [Bird] |
6759 | Livers always accompany hearts, but they don't explain hearts [Bird] |
6756 | Probabilistic-statistical explanations don't entail the explanandum, but makes it more likely [Bird] |
6760 | An operation might reduce the probability of death, yet explain a death [Bird] |
6785 | Inference to the Best Explanation is done with facts, so it has to be realist [Bird] |
6788 | Maybe bad explanations are the true ones, in this messy world [Bird] |
6787 | Which explanation is 'best' is bound to be subjective, and no guide to truth [Bird] |
6751 | Maybe explanation is so subjective that it cannot be a part of science [Bird] |
6976 | In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson] |
6986 | Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson] |
6992 | If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible [Jackson] |
6996 | Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output [Jackson] |
6977 | Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so [Jackson] |
6990 | Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water' [Jackson] |
6985 | Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases [Jackson] |
6995 | Successful predication supervenes on nature [Jackson] |
6989 | I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions [Jackson] |
6998 | Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson] |
6997 | Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality [Jackson] |
7000 | Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.? [Jackson] |
3049 | The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
3549 | Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas] |
6999 | It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide [Jackson] |
6776 | Natural kinds are those that we use in induction [Bird] |
6767 | Rubies and sapphires are both corundum, with traces of metals varying their colours [Bird] |
6768 | Tin is not one natural kind, but appears to be 21, depending on isotope [Bird] |
6771 | Natural kinds may overlap, or be sub-kinds of one another [Bird] |
6770 | Membership of a purely random collection cannot be used as an explanation [Bird] |
6773 | If F is a universal appearing in a natural law, then Fs form a natural kind [Bird] |
6769 | In the Kripke-Putnam view only nuclear physicists can know natural kinds [Bird] |
6774 | Darwinism suggests that we should have a native ability to detect natural kinds [Bird] |
6764 | Nominal essence of a natural kind is the features that make it fit its name [Bird] |
6766 | Jadeite and nephrite are superficially identical, but have different composition [Bird] |
6808 | Reference to scientific terms is by explanatory role, not by descriptions [Bird] |
6753 | Laws are more fundamental in science than causes, and laws will explain causes [Bird] |
6762 | Newton's laws cannot be confirmed individually, but only in combinations [Bird] |
6763 | Parapsychology is mere speculation, because it offers no mechanisms for its working [Bird] |
6772 | Existence requires laws, as inertia or gravity are needed for mass or matter [Bird] |
6746 | There may be many laws, each with only a few instances [Bird] |
6740 | 'All uranium lumps are small' is a law, but 'all gold lumps are small' is not [Bird] |
6741 | There can be remarkable uniformities in nature that are purely coincidental [Bird] |
6742 | A law might have no instances, if it was about things that only exist momentarily [Bird] |
6743 | If laws are just instances, the law should either have gaps, or join the instances arbitrarily [Bird] |
6744 | Where is the regularity in a law predicting nuclear decay? [Bird] |
6747 | Laws cannot explain instances if they are regularities, as something can't explain itself [Bird] |
6748 | Similar appearance of siblings is a regularity, but shared parents is what links them [Bird] |
6749 | We can only infer a true regularity if something binds the instances together [Bird] |
6803 | If we only infer laws from regularities among observations, we can't infer unobservable entities. [Bird] |
6801 | Accidental regularities are not laws, and an apparent regularity may not be actual [Bird] |
6745 | A regularity is only a law if it is part of a complete system which is simple and strong [Bird] |
6802 | With strange enough predicates, anything could be made out to be a regularity [Bird] |
6789 | If flame colour is characteristic of a metal, that is an empirical claim needing justification [Bird] |
6807 | In Newton mass is conserved, but in Einstein it can convert into energy [Bird] |