34 ideas
| 9136 | The paradox of analysis says that any conceptual analysis must be either trivial or false [Sorensen] |
| 9131 | Two long understandable sentences can have an unintelligible conjunction [Sorensen] |
| 20768 | Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 9139 | If nothing exists, no truthmakers could make 'Nothing exists' true [Sorensen] |
| 9140 | Which toothbrush is the truthmaker for 'buy one, get one free'? [Sorensen] |
| 9119 | No attempt to deny bivalence has ever been accepted [Sorensen] |
| 9135 | We now see that generalizations use variables rather than abstract entities [Sorensen] |
| 16405 | To understand a name (unlike a description) picking the thing out is sufficient? [Stalnaker] |
| 9125 | Denying problems, or being romantically defeated by them, won't make them go away [Sorensen] |
| 9137 | Banning self-reference would outlaw 'This very sentence is in English' [Sorensen] |
| 9116 | Vague words have hidden boundaries [Sorensen] |
| 9132 | An offer of 'free coffee or juice' could slowly shift from exclusive 'or' to inclusive 'or' [Sorensen] |
| 16407 | Possible worlds allow separating all the properties, without hitting a bare particular [Stalnaker] |
| 16397 | If it might be true, it might be true in particular ways, and possible worlds describe such ways [Stalnaker] |
| 16398 | Possible worlds allow discussion of modality without controversial modal auxiliaries [Stalnaker] |
| 16399 | Possible worlds are ontologically neutral, but a commitment to possibilities remains [Stalnaker] |
| 16396 | Kripke's possible worlds are methodological, not metaphysical [Stalnaker] |
| 16408 | Rigid designation seems to presuppose that differing worlds contain the same individuals [Stalnaker] |
| 9128 | It is propositional attitudes which can be a priori, not the propositions themselves [Sorensen] |
| 9130 | Attributing apriority to a proposition is attributing a cognitive ability to someone [Sorensen] |
| 9118 | The colour bands of the spectrum arise from our biology; they do not exist in the physics [Sorensen] |
| 9124 | We are unable to perceive a nose (on the back of a mask) as concave [Sorensen] |
| 9126 | Bayesians build near-certainty from lots of reasonably probable beliefs [Sorensen] |
| 9121 | Illusions are not a reason for skepticism, but a source of interesting scientific information [Sorensen] |
| 16406 | If you don't know what you say you can't mean it; what people say usually fits what they mean [Stalnaker] |
| 9134 | The negation of a meaningful sentence must itself be meaningful [Sorensen] |
| 16404 | In the use of a name, many individuals are causally involved, but they aren't all the referent [Stalnaker] |
| 16403 | 'Descriptive' semantics gives a system for a language; 'foundational' semantics give underlying facts [Stalnaker] |
| 16401 | To understand an utterance, you must understand what the world would be like if it is true [Stalnaker] |
| 9133 | Propositions are what settle problems of ambiguity in sentences [Sorensen] |
| 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] |
| 9129 | I can buy any litre of water, but not every litre of water [Sorensen] |
| 9122 | God cannot experience unwanted pain, so God cannot understand human beings [Sorensen] |