Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Philosophical Insignificance of A Priori Knowledge' and 'Against Dryness: a polemical sketch'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
All worthwhile philosophy is synthetic theorizing, evaluated by experience [Papineau]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
Our best theories may commit us to mathematical abstracta, but that doesn't justify the commitment [Papineau]
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]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 9. A Priori from Concepts
A priori knowledge is analytic - the structure of our concepts - and hence unimportant [Papineau]
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Intuition and thought-experiments embody substantial information about the world [Papineau]
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]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
Verificationism about concepts means you can't deny a theory, because you can't have the concept [Papineau]
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 1. Existentialism
Man is a brave naked will, separate from a background of values and realities [Murdoch]