Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letter to Clerk Maxwell' and 'Precis of 'Limits of Abstraction''

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8 ideas

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
Definitions concern how we should speak, not how things are [Fine,K]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / d. Hume's Principle
If Hume's Principle can define numbers, we needn't worry about its truth [Fine,K]
Hume's Principle is either adequate for number but fails to define properly, or vice versa [Fine,K]
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence
An abstraction principle should not 'inflate', producing more abstractions than objects [Fine,K]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology
Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / c. Forces
By 'force' I mean the sources of all actions - sometimes called 'powers' by their outcomes [Breheny]