Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Counterfactuals' and 'Explanation - Opening Address'

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17 ideas

2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 6. Coherence
Coherence is consilience, simplicity, analogy, and fitting into a web of belief [Smart]
We need comprehensiveness, as well as self-coherence [Smart]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 8. Continuity of Rivers
Cratylus said you couldn't even step into the same river once [Cratylus, by Aristotle]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
Lewis says indicative conditionals are truth-functional [Lewis, by Jackson]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
In good counterfactuals the consequent holds in world like ours except that the antecedent is true [Lewis, by Horwich]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
I simply reject evidence, if it is totally contrary to my web of belief [Smart]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
Cratylus decided speech was hopeless, and his only expression was the movement of a finger [Cratylus, by Aristotle]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
The height of a flagpole could be fixed by its angle of shadow, but that would be very unusual [Smart]
Universe expansion explains the red shift, but not vice versa [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
Explanations are bad by fitting badly with a web of beliefs, or fitting well into a bad web [Smart]
Deducing from laws is one possible way to achieve a coherent explanation [Smart]
Explanation of a fact is fitting it into a system of beliefs [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / d. Consilience
An explanation is better if it also explains phenomena from a different field [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
If scientific explanation is causal, that rules out mathematical explanation [Smart]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Scientific explanation tends to reduce things to the unfamiliar (not the familiar) [Smart]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
A law of nature is a general axiom of the deductive system that is best for simplicity and strength [Lewis]
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / b. General relativity
Unlike Newton, Einstein's general theory explains the perihelion of Mercury [Smart]